Steven R Johnson

Steven R. Johnson, born in 1973, is an American applied mathematician and physicist recognized for his significant contributions to computational science and optics. He is a professor at MIT in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Physics, where he leads a research group focused on nanostructures and computation. His academic journey included developing the highly influential FFTW (Fastest Fourier Transform in the West) library during his doctoral studies at MIT, with support from the DoD NDSEG Fellowship. This work, alongside his colleague Matteo Frigo, earned them the 1999 J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software.

Beyond FFTW, Johnson has developed the NLOpt library for nonlinear optimization. He has also co-authored open-source software for electromagnetic simulations, including Meep and MPB. His engagement extends to programming languages, where he is a notable contributor to the Julia programming language and has also contributed to Python, R, and Matlab. He was a featured keynote speaker at the 2019 JuliaCon conference, highlighting his prominence in the computational and scientific software communities.

Steven R. Johnson is widely recognized for his pioneering work in computational software, particularly the FFTW (Fastest Fourier Transform in the West) library. Developed during his PhD research at MIT with funding from the DoD NDSEG Fellowship, FFTW revolutionized the field of fast Fourier transforms, providing highly efficient implementations for software-based calculations. This groundbreaking contribution, co-developed with Matteo Frigo, was acknowledged with the 1999 J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software. Johnson has also authored the NLOpt library, which addresses nonlinear optimization problems, and co-authored Meep and MPB, open-source software packages used for electromagnetic simulations. His expertise in software development extends to contributions to popular programming languages such as Julia, Python, R, and Matlab.

A significant portion of Steven R. Johnson's research career has been dedicated to the study of photonic crystals and related optical phenomena. As a professor at MIT, he leads a research group specializing in Nanostructures and Computation, focusing on the manipulation of light at the nanoscale. His work in this area has resulted in seminal publications on topics such as guided modes in photonic crystal slabs and the application of block-iterative frequency-domain methods for Maxwell's equations. He is also a co-author of the book 'Photonic Crystals: The Road from Theory to Practice' and the second edition of 'Photonic Crystals: Molding the Flow of Light,' underscoring his foundational role in this field. His research has explored advanced concepts like negative refraction and the observation of trapped light within the radiation continuum.