Maggie D. Johnson

Maggie Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Marine Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). After completing postdoctoral fellowships with the Smithsonian Institution and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, she took a position in the Red Sea Research Center where she began building the Global Change Ecology Lab at KAUST. She has devoted her career to tackling the question, how are humans altering the face of coral reefs? Professor Johnson studies coral reefs across the globe, from the central tropical Pacific to Caribbean Panama, and seeks to understand what role humans are playing in the rapid degradation of these valuable ecosystems. She uses a combination of field and laboratory-based approaches to 1) evaluate and monitor the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems, 2) quantify inherent natural heterogeneity in key environmental parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH, 3) explore the implications of environmental variability for ecophysiology of coral reef primary producers, 4) and determine the implications of local and global environmental change for these foundational coral reef taxa. In addition to her research interests, Prof. Johnson is strongly committed to supporting women and underrepresented groups in the sciences and actively works on recruiting and supporting a diverse research group.