Beth Johnson

Beth Johnson

Beth Johnson is a communications specialist and social media manager for both the SETI Institute and the Planetary Science Institute. She is one of the hosts of the SETI Institute's weekly SETI Live show and monthly SETI Talks events, as well as the science interviewer for Escape Velocity Space News, CosmoQuest’s weekly news show on YouTube and in podcast form.

Beth completed her undergraduate work at San Jose State University, earning a degree in physics with an emphasis in astrophysics. She spent the summer of 2013 in an internship via CAMPARE (Cal Poly Pomona) at the SETI Institute, where she worked with Dr. Peter Jenniskens on NASA’s Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance project (CAMS). She analyzed the data for numerous meteor tracks and helped find several new meteor showers. She presented posters on her research at both winter and summer AAS conferences in 2014.

In her personal life, Beth is the wife of a Canadian network engineer/hockey player, the mother of a genderfluid teenager, and the guardian of five cats. She is passionate about science communication and education and can be found on many social media sites as planetarypan. She volunteers for  a local astronomy group, assisting them with social media and outreach.