February is Black History Month, and to mark the occasion, we
recently sat down with John Johnson, scientist at NASA's
Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. Johnson discussed his research and
recent discoveries, and the path that led him to the work he's
doing today. Q: Can you tell us about where you grew up? A: I
grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and I went to college at the
University of Missouri at Rolla. It is now known as the Missouri
University of Science and Technology. It is a small engineering
and science school like Caltech. There I studied physics and
earned a bachelor's degree in physics, and I applied to graduate
school only in California because it was my goal to only live in
California, having lived in Missouri all my life. I was accepted
to the astronomy school at U.C. Berkeley. There I studied
astrophysics and earned my master's degree in astronomy and
eventually earned my Ph.D. in astrophysics, studying with
Professor Geoff Marcy searching for plan