Discover Day 2026

Keynote Speaker: 

Headshot of keynote speaker Crystal JohnsonDr. Crystal N. Johnson

Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, College of the Coast and Environment

Dr. Crystal N. Johnson is an Associate Professor in the LSU Department of Environmental Sciences in the College of the Coast and Environment. She earned her bachelor's degree in cell and molecular biology at Tulane University in 1997 and her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2004. As an undergraduate researcher at Tulane University, she studied phytohormones and quickly fell in love with lab research. As a doctoral student, she studied antibiotic resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae. As a postdoc at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, she fell in love with vibrios and other autochthonous microbes and how they interact with their surrounding environments. She now focuses on Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus, and other microbes that occur naturally on the coast of Louisiana and beyond. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Louisiana Sea Grant (LSG), and the Louisiana Board of Regents (BoR). Even before she joined the LSU faculty as an assistant professor in 2009, she was a champion of young scientists participating in lab research as early as high school. Since joining the LSU family, she has hosted dozens of undergraduates in her BSL-2 lab and encouraged thousands more to take advantage of the prolific and creative research opportunities available at LSU. One of her undergraduate researchers, Andrew Schwartz, was awarded LSU’s 2023 Student Employee of the Year. When the ever-popular icebreaker question of "What would you do if you did not need money?" comes up, her answer remains "Exactly what I am already doing." She does not take this for granted. She loves sharing her scientific passions with any receptive audience, whether they are a teenager, a politician, a fellow scientist, or her own grandmother. Also, she loves birding.