Kathleen R. Johnson
Biography
Kathleen R. Johnson, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in Geology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and held positions as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Oxford before joining UCI in 2007. Johnson's research focuses on reconstructing past hydroclimate variability in tropical and subtropical regions, particularly Southeast Asia and Mexico, using speleothems and other paleoclimate archives to understand monsoon dynamics on timescales ranging from seasonal to orbital.
Johnson is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and a Sequoyah Fellow of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. She has served in numerous leadership roles, including President of the American Geophysical Union's Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology section (2023-2024) and Associate Editor of Quaternary Research. Johnson has been recognized for her work advancing diversity and inclusion in the geosciences, receiving the Dynamic Womxn of UCI Award for Outstanding Social Justice in 2024 and multiple UCI Inclusive Excellence Spirit Awards. She served as an AGU Landing Academy Fellow from 2021 to 2023 and currently serves as Equity Advisor for the School of Physical Sciences.
Johnson is Principal Investigator and Director of the UCI CLIMATE Justice Initiative, a $7.5 million NSF-funded program that centers environmental justice and community engagement in climate change research and education. From 2012 to 2017, she directed the American Indian Summer Institute in Earth System Science, a residential program for Indigenous high school students. Johnson co-founded and co-chairs the Native American and Indigenous Faculty and Staff Association at UCI and serves as faculty advisor for the UCI American Indian Student Association. She is a leadership team member for paleoCAMP, a graduate summer school in paleoclimatology, and serves on the editorial board for California's Fifth Climate Change Assessment.
Return to topEducation
- PhD in Geology, University of California, Berkeley, 2004
- BS in Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, 1996
Distinctions
- Fellow of the Geological Society of America, 2017
- Randolph W. Bill and Cecile T. Bromery, Geological Society of America Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Fostering Undergraduate Research, 2016
- AGU Landing Academy Fellow, 2021-2023
- Dynamic Womxn of UCI Award (Outstanding Social Justice Award for Faculty), 2024
- Gary Comer Abrupt Climate Change Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2004-2007
- College-Level Promotion of Education Award, Women of Color in STEM Conference, Career Communications Group, Inc., 2018
- Scholarship in Geochronology, Berkeley Geochronology Center, 1999-2002
- UCI Inclusive Excellence Spirit Award for UCI Natural Reserves and Building Relationships with Native Nations as Kuuyam (guests) on Indigenous Homelands, 2018-2019
- UCI Inclusive Excellence Spirit Award for Cultivating Consciousness in Acjachemen and Tongva Homelands, 2017-2018
- Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education, School of Physical Sciences, 2010, 2012
Areas of Expertise
- Paleoclimate Reconstruction
- Speleothem Oxygen Isotope Analysis
- Asian Monsoon Variability
- Radiocarbon Dating Calibration
- Hydroclimate Dynamics Southeast Asia
- Clumped Isotope Thermometry
- Millennial-Scale Climate Oscillations
Recent Publications
- Patterson E.W., Akhtar A.A., Griffiths M.L., McGee D., Do-Trong Q., Wolf A., Higgins J.A., Gili S., Tran M.X., Nguyen H.Q., Dinh T.H., Bui T.N., Johnson K.R., “Quantifying changes in central Vietnam rainfall amount since the Late Pleistocene” (opens in new tab), Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 674, 2026.
- Pahl B.L., Meckler A.N., Kruger Y., Wright K.T., Serrato Marks G., Jost A.B., McGee D., Wanamaker A.D., Ankerstjerne S., Johnson K.R., “Terrestrial Temperature Variability and Its Impact on Vegetation and Moisture Dynamics During Dansgaard-Oeschger Event 22 in Northern Mexico” (opens in new tab), Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 52, 2025.
- Patterson, E.W., Skiba V., Wolf, A., Griffiths, M.L., McGee, D., Bui, T.N., Tran, M.X., Dinh, T.H., Do-Trong, Q., Goldsmith, G.R., Ersek, V., Johnson, K.R., “Local hydroclimate alters interpretation of speleothem δ¹⁸O records” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 9064, 2024.
- Wood, C.T., Johnson, K.R., Lewis, L.E., Wright, K., Wang, J.K., Borsato, A., Griffiths, M.L., Mason, A., Henderson, G.M., Setera, J.B., Frisia, S., “High-Resolution, Multiproxy Speleothem Record of the 8.2 ka Event From Mainland Southeast Asia” (opens in new tab), Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, vol. 38, no. 12, pp. e2023PA004675, 2023.
- Patterson, E. W., Johnson, K. R., Griffiths, M. L., Kinsley, C. W., McGee, D., Du, X., Đinh, T. H., “Glacial changes in sea level modulated millennial-scale variability of Southeast Asian autumn monsoon rainfall” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 120, no. 27, pp. e2219489120, 2023.
- Wright, K. T., Johnson, K. R., Marks, G. S., McGee, D., Bhattacharya, T., Goldsmith, G. R., Beramendi-Orosco, L., “Dynamic and thermodynamic influences on precipitation in Northeast Mexico on orbital to millennial timescales” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 2279, 2023.
- Wang, M., Hu, C.Y., Liu, Y., Li, L., Xie, S., Johnson, K.R., “Precipitation in eastern China over the past millennium varied with large-scale climate patterns” (opens in new tab), Communications Earth and Environment, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 321, 2022.
- Wright, K.T., Johnson, K.R., Bhattacharya, T., Marks, G.S., McGee, D., Elsbury, D., Peings, Y., Lacaille-Muzquiz, J.L., Lum, G., Beramendi-Orosco, L., Magnusdottir, G., “Precipitation in Northeast Mexico Primarily Controlled by the Relative Warming of Atlantic SSTs” (opens in new tab), Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. e2022GL098186, 2022.
- Johnson, K.R., “California's Volatile Hydroclimate: Lessons From the Paleoclimate Record” (opens in new tab), Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 48, no. 23, pp. e2021GL095512, 2021.
- Johnson, K.R., “Hydroclimate reconstructions from speleothems”, Elements Magazine, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 93-100, 2021.
- Feinberg, J.M., Johnson, K.R., “Cave and speleothem science: From local to planetary scales” (opens in new tab), Elements Magazine, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 81-86, 2021.
- Johnson K.R., “Tales from the underground: Speleothem records of past hydroclimate” (opens in new tab), Elements, vol. 17, pp. 93-100, 2021.
Most Cited Publications
- Zhang et al., “A Test of Climate, Sun, and Culture Relationships from an 1810-Year Chinese Cave Record” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 322, pp. 940-942, 2008.
- Hu, C., Henderson, G. M., Huang, J. H., Xie, S. C., Johnson, K. R., “Quantification of Holocene Asian monsoon rainfall from spatially separated cave records” (opens in new tab), Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 266, pp. 221-232, 2008.
- Johnson, K. R., Hu, C. Y., Belshaw, N. S., Henderson, G. M., “Seasonal trace-element and stable-isotope variations in a Chinese speleothem: The potential for high-resolution paleomonsoon reconstruction” (opens in new tab), Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 244, pp. 394-407, 2006.
- Johnson, K. R., Ingram, B. L., “Spatial and temporal variability in the stable isotope systematics of modern precipitation in China: implications for paleoclimate reconstructions” (opens in new tab), Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 220, pp. 365-377, 2004.
- Griffiths, M.L., Johnson, K.R., Pausata, F.S.R., White, J.C., Henderson, G.M., Wood, C.T., Yang, H., Ersek, V., Conrad, C., Sekhon, N., “End of Green Sahara amplified mid-to late Holocene megadroughts in mainland Southeast Asia” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, 2020.
- Yang, H., Johnson, K.R., Griffiths, M., Yoshimura, K., “Interannual controls on oxygen isotope variability in Asian monsoon precipitation and implications for paleoclimate reconstructions” (opens in new tab), Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, vol. 121, no. 14, pp. 8410-8428, 2016.
- Hu, C. Y., Henderson, G. M., Huang, J. H., Chen, Z. H., Johnson, K. R., “Report of a three-year monitoring programme at Heshang Cave, Central China” (opens in new tab), International Journal of Speleology, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 143-151, 2008.
- Johnson, K. R., Ingram, B. L., Sharp, W. D., Zhang, P. Z., “East Asian summer monsoon variability during Marine Isotope Stage 5 based on speleothem delta O-18 records from Wanxiang Cave, central China” (opens in new tab), Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology, vol. 236, pp. 5-19, 2006.
- Berkelhammer, M., Stott, L., Yoshimura, K., Johnson, K. R., “Synoptic and mesoscale controls on the isotopic composition of individual storms systems striking the western US” (opens in new tab), Climate Dynamics, vol. 38, no. 3-4, pp. 433-454, 2012.
- Wolf, A., Roberts, W.H.G., Ersek, V., Johnson, K.R., Griffiths, M.L., “Rainwater isotopes in central Vietnam controlled by two oceanic moisture sources and rainout effects” (opens in new tab), Scientific Reports, vol. 10, pp. 16482, 2020.
Contact Information
Website: https://sites.uci.edu/johnsonlab/
Email: kathleen.johnson@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-6174, 1060
Address: 1222 Croul Hall
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Last updated on 4/28/2026.