Norman Johnson was born on November 12, 1930 in Chicago. His father had a bookstore and published a local newspaper.^[1]

Johnson earned his undergraduate mathematics degree in 1953 at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota^[2] followed by a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh.^[1] After graduating in 1953, Johnson did alternative civilian service as a conscientious objector.^[1] He earned his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1966 with a dissertation title of The Theory of Uniform Polytopes and Honeycombs under the supervision of H. S. M. Coxeter. From there, he accepted a position in the Mathematics Department of Wheaton College in Massachusetts and taught until his retirement in 1998.^[1]

In 1966, he enumerated 92 convex non-uniform polyhedra with regular faces. Victor Zalgaller later proved (1969) that Johnson's list was complete, and the set is now known as the Johnson solids.^[3][4]

Johnson is also credited with naming all the uniform star polyhedra and their duals, as published in Magnus Wenninger's model building books: Polyhedron models (1971) and Dual models (1983).^[5]

He completed final edits for his book Geometries and Transformations just before his death on July 13, 2017, and nearly completed his manuscript on uniform polytopes.^[1]