The Institute - June 2021 - 63

ACADEMIA PROFILE
IEEE Medalist
Has Big Plans as
Ohio State President
Kristina Johnson, this year's IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus
Medal recipient, discusses her goals for the university
BY JOANNA GOODRICH
KRISTINA M. JOHNSON has broken
through barriers during her career. She
became the first female dean of Duke
University's engineering school, the
first female provost at Johns Hopkins
University, and the first woman to
receive the John Fritz Medal-in
2008-from the American Association
of Engineering Societies.
This year the IEEE Fellow added
another distinction: first recipient of
the IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal.
Johnson received the recognition
" for leadership and technical contributions
spanning academia, government,
and business. "
The Dresselhaus Medal, introduced
last year, recognizes outstanding technical
contributions in science and engineering
of great impact to IEEE fields
of interest. It is sponsored by Google.
Johnson is an expert in photonics,
specializing in optoelectronic
processing systems.
She has founded several companies,
but Johnson, who is president of the
Ohio State University, in Columbus,
says her true passion is academia.
" I just love teaching, " she says.
" Seeing the light bulb go off in students'
heads is super exciting. "
Name Kristina M. Johnson
Employer Ohio State University, in Columbus
Title President
Member grade Fellow
Alma mater Stanford
LOGAN WALLACE/THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-m-johnson-72387639/ https://www.duke.edu/ https://www.duke.edu/ https://www.jhu.edu/ https://www.jhu.edu/ https://www.spie.org/about-spie/spie-member-news/johnson--aaes-award?SSO=1 https://aaes.org/ https://aaes.org/ https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-news/mildred-dresselhaus-the-queen-of-carbon-science-has-ieee-medal-named-in-her-honor https://www.osu.edu/ https://www.osu.edu/ https://www.osu.edu/

The Institute - June 2021

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