Featured Speaker:

Kristina Johnson, Ph.D.
Professor and Dean, Pratt School of Engineering
Duke University

Kristina Johnson received her B.S., M.S. (with distinction) and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. After a NATO post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland studying ultra fast laser pulses, she joined the University of Colorado-Boulder’s faculty in 1985 as an Assistant Professor, promoted to full Professor in 1994.

Dr. Johnson received the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the IBM Faculty Award and the Dennis Gabor Prize, for “creativity and innovation in modern optics” in 1993. In 1997 she was awarded the Colorado Technology Transfer Award by the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute, and in 2001, the Center for Entrepreneurial Development Infrastructure Award in North Carolina. In 2003, she was inducted into the Women In Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame and she received the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Achievement Award in 2004.

From 1994 until 1999 Johnson directed the NSF/ERC for Optoelectronics Computing Systems Center at University of Colorado and Colorado State University. She has published over 140 refereed papers and proceedings and holds forty-three patents.

A fellow of the Optical Society of America, IEEE and a Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Johnson has helped start several companies including founder of ColorLink, Inc. and sits on several corporate Board of Directors including Mineral Technologies Inc., Dycom Industries, Guidant Corporation and AES Corporation. She also serves on the advisory board of the NSF Engineering Directorate, Science Foundation Ireland, Smith College Pickering School, Carnegie Mellon University and Colorado School of Mines.