Kathryn V Johnston received her Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from UC-Santa Cruz. She was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and then an assistant professor at Wesleyan University, where she was a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award. She joined the Columbia faculty in 2006. Her research is centered around the fundamental dynamical processes that shape galaxies, in particular, our home galaxy - the Milky Way. Her program identifies physical manifestations of resonant and chaotic orbits, looks for remnants of the early universe in the Milky Way and probes both galaxy evolution and the nature of dark matter.
Research Topics
dynamics; galaxy interactions, formation and evolution; the Milky Way and Local Group