Columbia University
Professor of Astronomy
Kathryn Johnston is a professor at Columbia University, Dynamics Group Leader at the Center for Computational Astrophysics (part of the Flatiron Institute), and Chair of the Committee on Equity and Diversity in Columbia’s School of Arts and Sciences.
Johnston is interested in understanding how our own Galaxy formed. She pursues this goal using a combination of close collaborations with observational colleagues, analytic estimates, and computer simulations of galactic collisions.
She arrived in this field following an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Cambridge University, a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from UC Santa Cruz, and a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She joined the Columbia Astronomy Faculty in Fall 2006 after spending seven years as an assistant professor at Wesleyan University.