Alyssa Johnson

I just received a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and have just started a Ph.D. in Astronomy at the University of California, San Diego. I previously earned a Master of Fine Arts in Painting & Drawing from Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. During my undergraduate career, my research focused on laboratory tests of weak-field gravity and observational cosmology research. I'm very excited about the space sciences and for the past year interned at NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), working on experiment designs for the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD). I want to better understand ways to peacefully use space while also aiming to become an experimental cosmologist. I will be working with UCSD's Cosmology group to study polarization anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).