Justin Johnson earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004. He did postdoctoral work with Prof. Josef Michl at the University of Colorado-Boulder and Dr. Arthur Nozik at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) before becoming a staff member at NREL in 2008. He has done work as a detailee with Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences and has a joint appointment with Colorado School of Mines in Quantum Engineering. His work has spanned molecular and nanoscale materials for solar energy conversion, optoelectronics, and quantum sensing.