He received his Master of Architecture in 1992 and his Bachelor of Architecture in 1990 from Ball State University. Following graduation, Jeffrey Johnson worked for offices in Vienna, Austria and Chicago before locating in New York in 1994. In New York, Jeffrey Johnson worked in various offices including Asymptote and Michael Sorkin Studio. From 2001 through 2003, Jeffrey Johnson worked as project architect for OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and New York City, during which time he completed the McCormick-Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago and the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York. In 2003, he co-founded SLAB architecture with Jill Leckner. Johnson was awarded an AIA Presidential Citation in 2012 for his work on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.