SPA Colloquium: Jolene Johnson (UW- River Falls)
Title: Over a Century of Discovery: Documenting the History of Women in Physics and
Astronomy in Minnesota and Using Local Narratives in the Classroom
Abstract: Despite a long history of scientific inquiry in our state, few people can name a single female physicist from Minnesota. Until very recently, many physicists—myself included—completed training from high school through graduate school without ever having a female instructor. Despite being a lifelong Minnesota resident and completing my Physics PhD at the University of Minnesota, I knew very little about the women who came before and after me in the department.
This project was sparked by a chance discovery at a Wisconsin AAPT meeting regarding Ada Francis Johnson, who received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1921 and went on to build a successful physics program at Rockford College. Motivated by her story, this talk explores a comprehensive effort to document the history of women in physics in Minnesota from the first graduates in the 1920s through the present day.
Working with University librarians and archivists, we have identified that through November 2025, there have been 110 female Physics PhDs, 24 female Astronomy PhDs, and 12 female professors at UMN. Through archival research and interviews with living alumnae, we are constructing profiles of these scientists to document their contributions to science and their experiences as women in the field. We will discuss how these narratives are being used to analyze clusters of representation over time and explore how the female experience in physics has—and has not—changed over the last 100 years. Finally, I will discuss how I integrate these local narratives into a freshman physics seminar using a diversity unit based on the STEP UP lessons.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Jolene Johnson is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. A lifelong Minnesota resident, she earned degrees in physics and music from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, and a Master’s degree and PhD (2012) in physics from the University of Minnesota, working in Jochen Mueller’s biophysics lab. She has taught everything from eighth grade through upper-level physics classes. Throughout her varied teaching career, she has focused on improving physics education at all levels and recruiting and retaining more diverse physicists.
