Jennifer Johnson

Dr. Jennifer E. Johnson is a Research Associate in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Her research is oriented toward building quantitative understanding of the processes that control the exchange of energy, water, and carbon dioxide between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere, using a combination of measurements and models.

On the measurement side, the focus is developing strategies for accurately measuring trace gas concentrations and isotope ratios in complex environmental samples via laser absorption spectroscopy. On the modeling side, the focus is developing models of photosynthesis that are skilled in coupling trace gas fluxes to optical fluxes, particularly of solar-induced fluorescence. Both of these lines of work aim to strengthen the scientific toolkit for interpreting the state of the global carbon cycle, diagnosing the poise of carbon-climate feedbacks, and forecasting the future dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere.

Dr. Johnson received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Stanford University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a Bing-Mooney Fellow in Environmental Science and Conservation. She holds a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College, where she was a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar and Morris K. Udall Scholar. Her research has been recognized with the Dwight Billings Award for Physiological Ecology from the Ecological Society of America.