Virginia Eshelman. Johnson is a researcher in human sexuality. With her then-husband, Dr. William Howell Masters, she co-wrote Human Sexual Response in 1966. In collaboration with Masters, Johnson pioneered the study of human sexuality under laboratory conditions. She and Masters published the results of their study as a book entitled Human Sexual Response in 1966, causing an immediate sensation. As part of her work at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis and later at the Masters and Johnson Institute, she counseled many clients and taught sex therapy to many professional practitioners.

Johnson was born on February 11, 1925, in Springfield, Missouri, to Hershel Eshelman, a farmer, and Edna (Evans) Eshelman. The elder of two children, she began school in Palo Alto, California, where her family had moved in 1930. When they returned to Missouri three years later, she was ahead of her school peers and skipped several grades. She studied piano...