Madisen Johnson · Astrophysicist
I study how gas becomes stars - starting with molecular hydrogen.
Recently
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May 2026
Attending the Olympian Symposium in Paralia Katerina, Greece presenting a poster on the radiation field dependence of molecular hydrogen in solar metallicity ISM.
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Oct 2025
Paper published in ApJ titled "A Tentative Detection of Molecular Hydrogen (H2) Emission Lines at Cosmic Dawn"
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Oct 2025
Passed qualifying exam and officially acheived candidacy!
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Jul 2025
Presented "H2 From Nearby Clouds to the First Galaxies" at the Interstellar Institute 7 in Paris, France.
About
My research focuses on the lifecycle of molecular hydrogen in galaxies and the physical processes that regulate the transition between atomic and molecular gas.
I study how molecular gas forms, evolves, and is destroyed in the interstellar medium by combining numerical simulations with analytic modeling. My work explores how environmental factors such as radiation fields, density structure, and metallicity shape the HI–H2 transition and set the conditions for star formation.
I also connect these theoretical models to observations, including fluorescence signatures of H2 in high-redshift galaxies observed with JWST, with the goal of understanding how molecular gas behaves in the early universe.
I am currently a 3rd year astronomy and physics PhD candidate at Rutgers University. I completed my undergraduate degree in astrophysics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
