Kathleen Johnson

Associate Professor and Vice-Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Department of Earth System Science

UC Irvine

Kathleen Johnson is an Associate Professor and Vice-Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Earth System Science (ESS) at the University of California, Irvine. She is a geochemist and climate scientist who researches past climate change using cave deposits from across the globe. She received her B.S. (1996) and PhD (2004) in Geology from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively.

Professor Johnson, an enrolled member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, is dedicated to increasing participation of historically marginalized groups in higher education and in STEM, especially in the geosciences, which is the least diverse of all STEM fields. She recently served as PI and director of UCI’s NSF funded American Indian Summer Institute in Earth System Science (AISIESS) from 2011-2017. She oversees the ESS department’s partnership with the AGU Bridge Program, part of the Inclusive Graduate Education Network, which is designed to increase the number of underpresented minorities pursuing graduate studies in the geosciences. In her position as vice-chair, she is working on developing and implementing holistic graduate admissions practices within UCI ESS, and is excited to help other departments achieve their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.