Background
Kristina Johnson grew up in Denver, Colorado.
Kristina Johnson grew up in Denver, Colorado.
She attended Hamilton Junior High School, where she founded the environmental club Doctor Johnson received her Bachelor of Surgery, Master of Surgery, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
She has been a leader in the development of optoelectronic processing systems, 3-Doctorate imaging, and color-management systems After graduating with her first degree from Stanford University, she aspired to play field hockey at the international level but was diagnosed with Hodgkin"s disease and turned to focus on her academics. Johnson was the Undersecretary for Energy at the United States Department of Energy until she stepped down November
5, 2010.
She had previously been the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University since September 1, 2007. Previously, she had been the dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University since 1999. Johnson has also served as director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronics Computing Systems at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
She founded several companies including ColorLink, Incorporated which was later sold to RealD, responsible for the technology that launched the 3D move industry.
Additionally, she co-founded the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute Center of Excellence in Optoelectronics and has been a director of Minerals Technologies Incorporated., Advanced Encryption Standard Corporation, Nortel and Guidant Corporation. She is currently director at Boston Scientific Corporation,Cisco Systems and Advanced Encryption Standard Corporation.
She was confirmed as Under Secretary of Energy for the Obama Administration in 2009. A strong proponent of women in leadership, science and engineering, she is passioinate about Science Technology Engineering And Mathematics and Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics edcation and creating jobs through small businesses.
In 1993 Kristina Johnson was the first woman to be awarded the International Dennis Gabor Award for creativity in modern optics. In 2008, she received the John Fritz Medal, a prestigious award in the engineering profession. In 2015, Johnson was elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her work developing polarization-control technologies.
