Bio

Dr. Johnson is a seasoned product leader with deep technical roots and a rare track record of impact across startups, academia, and top-tier tech companies. She currently serves as Head of Product for the Roblox Operating System, where she shapes the product vision for the employee lifecycle for employees at one of the world’s most immersive virtual platforms.
Before that, she led Payments Data Products at Airbnb, tackling complex infrastructure challenges at scale with a focus on user trust, access, and seamless global transactions.

Her career is built on a strong technical foundation—she earned a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford, becoming the second Black woman in history to do so. That mix of deep systems thinking, experimentation, and executional rigor shows up in everything from launching infrastructure and AI-enabled products, to leading cross-functional teams, to mentoring students and early-career PMs. As Lecturing Professor at Stanford for Introduction to Product Management in the School of Engineering, she's passionate about building inclusive, high-performing teams and designing products that don’t just hit metrics, but matter.

Prof. Theresa Johnson has a BS in Science, Technology and Society and an MS and PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University. She’s been published in the fields of robotics, machine learning and plasma physics. Theresa lives in Bernal Heights, San Francisco with her husband, two daughters and her rescued catahoula hound, Amelie.

Academic Appointments

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Trustee, Stanford Alumni Association (2018 - 2023)

Professional Education

  • PhD, Stanford University, Aeronautics and Astronautics (2015)
  • MS, Stanford University, Aeronautics and Astronautics (2010)
  • BS, Stanford University, Science Technology and Society (2006)

Contact

Links

2025-26 Courses

All Publications

  • Detection of electromagnetic pulses produced by hypervelocity micro particle impact plasmas PHYSICS OF PLASMAS Close, S., Linscott, I., Lee, N., Johnson, T., Strauss, D., Goel, A., Fletcher, A., Lauben, D., Srama, R., Mocker, A., Bugiel, S. 2013; 20 (9)

    View details for DOI 10.1063/1.4819777

    View details for Web of Science ID 000325399400004

  • Theory and experiments characterizing hypervelocity impact plasmas on biased spacecraft materials PHYSICS OF PLASMAS Lee, N., Close, S., Goel, A., Lauben, D., Linscott, I., Johnson, T., Strauss, D., Bugiel, S., Mocker, A., Srama, R. 2013; 20 (3)

    View details for DOI 10.1063/1.4794331

    View details for Web of Science ID 000317295200050

  • A LINEAR TOF MASS SPECTROMETER AS A TOOL FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF IMPACT IONISATION PLASMA Mocker, A., Hornung, K., Sternovsky, Z., Kempf, S., Johnson, T., Gruen, E., Srama, R. edited by Elert, M. L., Buttler, W. T., Borg, J. P., Jordan, J. L., Vogler, T. J. AMER INST PHYSICS. 2012

    View details for DOI 10.1063/1.3686413

    View details for Web of Science ID 000302774300201

  • Critic, Compatriot, or Chump?: Responses to Robot Blame Attribution Groom, V., Chen, J., Johnson, T., Kara, F., Nass, C., IEEE IEEE. 2010: 211–17

    View details for DOI 10.1145/1734454.1734545

    View details for Web of Science ID 000394675400078