Johnson joined the faculty of the
University of California Irvine in 2007, and is a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Physical Sciences. She leads the Johnson Lab in the Department of Earth System Science, with a focus on paleoclimate research. Asian monsoons, and northern Mexico. Dr. Kathleen R. Johnson's research focuses on using geochemical variations in
speleothems (cave formations) to reconstruct past climate changes. She studies how temperature and rainfall influence isotopic and trace-element compositions in
stalagmites, combining modern cave monitoring with fossil speleothem analysis. Her work aims to create high-resolution climate reconstructions from regions like
Laos,
Vietnam, and
Mexico, helping to understand major climate systems like the Asian
monsoon and
El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Johnson advocates for more Native American students to have careers in STEM, particularly
geoscience, to address environmental challenges. Johnson was the Principal Investigator and director of the American Indian Summer Institute in Earth System Science, a residential summer program for high school students hosted at UC Irvine. The program was established in 2011 by Johnson and the American Indian Resource Program staff at UC Irvine with grant funding of more than $1M from the US
National Science Foundation before ending in 2017. In 2016, the program had 129 participants from over 50 tribes. == Awards and honors ==