FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: KENNETH JOHNSON, 20 YEARS AT UHD

Researcher Kenneth Johnson creates opportunities in the field of geosciences for students through 20-year career at UHD

BY RYAN PRICE

Kenneth Johnson, is a petrologist, associate professor of geology and chemistry, and the geosciences coordinator at UHD.

Johnson fell in love with geology during his time as an undergraduate at Ohio State University, where he started out as a chemistry major. That all changed when he watched a documentary on the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

“I thought to myself, certainly there has got to be a way of combining geology with chemistry”, John son said. “So, the next quarter I took a physical geology course and loved it, so I changed my major.”

Little did he know there was a whole disci pline of geochemistry.

Johnson finished his undergraduate de gree with a bachelor’s in geology and then completed graduate degrees, both a master’s and doctorate, at Texas Tech University in the geosciences.

Johnson’s work in petrology was chosen as it allowed him to combine his love of chemistry, geology, field work, and the wide-ranging field of geochemistry together. This has led to years of successful field work in the Blue Mountains of Oregon and Idaho, as well as research trips to the Czech Republic, England, Morocco, and many more including Antarctica.

In 2002, Johnson moved to Houston owing to his wife’s job. He landed a lecturer position at UHD for the first few years of his employment. Soon after, a tenure track position opened up and, in 2007, was accepted as an assistant professor of geology and chemistry. All-in-all, Johnson has worked for UHD for over 20 years.

As the geosciences coordinator for UHD, Johnson has great pride in the geosciences degree programs that are offered on campus.

"What makes this program unique is the three choices of concentrations, most universities have like several hours of electives where you would explore those,” Johnson said regarding the program.

“But here, in this program, those elective hours have been reduced so that they are geared towards a concentration.”

The system was designed so that graduating students had a much greater chance at employment or acceptance to graduate school following graduation. He wanted to create a program where the coursework went “above and beyond” just the general course-work common to most geology programs. As a result, UHD's geoscienc program has an excellent record of getting its students into competitive graduate programs or into geoscience careers.

But what excites Johnson more than anything is the research opportunities that UHD has made available to him and, furthermore, his students. Johnson’s largest point of pride in the program is that students have the ability to do their own research.

“It’s real research. It’s not just washing bottles in somebody’s lab. Each student has their own independent research project… related to what I am doing,” Johnson said.

This research takes place in one of two labs that Johnson runs on campus. These labs include a modern geochemistry lab, where samples are analyzed for their elemental composition using a plasma spectrometer that students can use to analyze their own samples and collect their own data.

Using this instrument, Johnson says that students can analyze not just rock samples but also soil, water, and even coffee! These coffee samples, in particular, are part of an exciting project being led by Johnson and two UHD students.

Johnson is a huge fan of coffee. As such, he became intrigued when he learned that one brand of Hawaiian coffee was being sold in volumes greater than what was produced.

He speculates that this is a case of com modities fraud, where the coffee being ad vertised and sold is, in actuality, a completely different coffee instead.

Using his knowledge and skills as a petrologist, alongside his students, Johnson thinks he has discovered a way to unravel this secret.

“Coffees grow on basaltic soil. The basalts from Hawaii are very different from Columbia and that’s very different to east Africa,” explained Johnson about his coffee project. “The basalts are very different chemically, so we’re testing the hypothesis that maybe we can discriminate between different… tectonic environments just in infused coffees.”

Johnson believes that because these chemical signatures are so different, he and his students should be able to determine if the coffee being sold is actually what is being advertised.

The project not only includes Johnson and his students, but also UHD professor of physics Janusz Grebowicz as a part of an interdepartmental research project.

The completion of this project will add to the 15 publications authored by Johnson and will increase the tally on the numerous published abstract and poster projects that he has been a part of.

When asked about his favorite part of working for UHD, Johnson struggled to select just one.

“I like seeing my students conduct their own research out in the field and collect samples. I like taking students to other labs and using their labs,” stated Johnson while drinking hot coffee straight from a UHD branded coffee mug.

“I don’t know if I can just pinpoint one thing.”