Kristina Johnson is The Ohio State University’s 16th president in the school’s history. Johnson began her tenure on Aug. 24, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, after serving as chancellor of the 64-campus State University of New York for three years.
“Ohio State has always been a special place to me – well beyond its standing as one of the most respected teaching, research and patient-care institutions in the world,” Johnson says in a statement to the public. “I am humbled to be selected to lead this great land-grant university, and I look forward to meeting with students, faculty and staff to begin our work together.”
Here are some interesting background facts about OSU’s new president:
Love or Hate Avatar? Thank Johnson
Johnson is an inventor and has more than 100 U.S. and international patents. During her tenure as a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she cofounded and served as CEO of ColorLink, which developed microdisplays and color polarizing technology. ColorLink, which became part of RealD, helped develop the 3-D glasses used in more than 300 films such as Avatar and spurring the 3-D film industry in 2005.
An Emmy nominee
Also during her tenure at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Johnson was nominated for a regional Emmy award for The Physics of Light, a 10-part educational television series for middle school students in the Rocky Mountain region.
A first of many
Johnson was the first woman to serve as provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, first female dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and first female professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In addition, Johnson was the first openly gay chancellor at SUNY and will be the first openly gay president of OSU.
Johnson is married to Veronica Meinhard, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, and a four-time All-American swimmer at her alma mater, the University of Florida. Meinhard has three decades of experience in higher education philanthropy and administration and founded Juniper Philanthropy Partners.
Deep Ohio roots
Johnson has deep family roots in Ohio. Her grandfather, for instance, graduated from Ohio State in 1896 and played right guard on one of the early football teams. According to Johnson’s family lore, it’s possible her grandfather met her grandmother on the Columbus campus.
Green inspiration
Johnson served two years as under-secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Obama administration.
In a 2011 interview with The Advocate, Johnson says her passion in green energy goes back to inaugural Earth Day in 1970 and one of her teachers.
“I had a great eighth-grade teacher who was really pro-environment and taught me a lot about recycling,” she says in that interview. “So I cleaned all the fields around our house. Pretty soon our entire basement was filled with aluminum cans.”
Brandon Klein is an associate editor. Feedback welcome at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com.
