HILARY JOHNSON is currently a Space Hardware Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). She is the Mechanical Engineering Lead for the Pandora SmallSat Mission, a NASA Pioneers Mission, set to launch in early 2025. She also leads R&D of mechanical logic systems for robust computation in extreme environments. In addition, she engages as a subject matter expert with several early Lab Directed Research and Development (LDRD) projects. Throughout her work, Johnson integrates deterministic machine design practices with computational and machine learning informed analysis.

Johnson joined the Laboratory from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she completed her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 2022 with a focus on precision machine design and turbomachinery and a minor in machine learning. She graduated with a A.B. and B.E. from Dartmouth College in 2015. Johnson’s research interests span a broad range of applications in space, sensing, energy, and climate, unified by a common approach to melding early TRL scientific investigation with maturing innovation using precision machine design and computation.

In addition to her work at the lab, Johnson is a lecturer at Dartmouth College in Fall 2023. She strives to pay-it-forward to the next generation of engineers through teaching, giving talks to high school and college student groups, and mentoring at LLNL.

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Cambridge, MA

S.M. Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Cambridge, MA

A.B. & B.E. Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH