Jacqueline A. Johnson

Jacqueline Anne Johnson is a faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Tullahoma, TN. She received her BSc in Physics from the University of Liverpool, UK in 1981, and her PhD in Physics from there in 1985. She was a Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory from 1995-2007, and was on faculty at Liverpool John Moores University from 1991-1995.    

Dr. Johnson has 100 peer-reviewed papers to her credit; 90 invited talks; won the R & D 100 award (2007); and has Patent: # US 8,008,642: Computed Radiography System for Mammography (2011).  She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (2011).  She is a member of the ACerS Glass & Optical Materials Division.      

Dr. Johnson’s major interest is in the structural characterization of materials, particularly glasses, glass ceramics, nanomaterials and carbon films. She is developing a new mammography system using a glass-ceramic plate. The goal of this project is to improve the image quality and reduce the cost of digital mammography. The system is a computed radiography (CR) setup based on novel glass ceramic materials. These materials are less are less expensive and attain better spatial resolution than existing photostimulable phosphor materials. They are transparent and, therefore, do not suffer from loss of spatial resolution and increase in noise due to light scattering from grain boundaries, as do polycrystalline materials. Dr. Johnson is also active in basic research looking at the development of nanoparticles in these glass ceramic plates via in situ TEM. In addition, she studies diamond-like carbon, applied to various medical devices as a coating. Recent work has been in the development of iron nanoparticles for use in hyperthermia, magnetic resonance imaging and thermal fluids.