Prof Theresa Johnson

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, her rescued catahoula hound, Amelie.