Chris Johns, former editor in chief of National Geographic magazine, was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1979 while a staff photographer for TheTopeka Capital-Journal. Before joining National Geographic in 1995 and becoming senior editor of illustrations in 2001, he worked as a freelance photographer for Life, Time,and National Geographic. The author of Valley of Life: Africa's Great Rift,he lives with his family on a farm in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.