Rate My Professor Sarah Johnson

Professor Sarah Johnson holds the position of Professor and Deputy Head of School (Research) in the School of Engineering at the University of Newcastle. A distinguished alumna of the institution, she earned her Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering with first class Honours and the university medal in 2000, followed by a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2004. Her career began with a Research Fellowship at National ICT Australia from 2003 to 2004. Returning to the University of Newcastle, she served as Senior Research Fellow from 2007 to 2012, ARC Future Fellow from 2012 to 2015, and has been Professor since 2018. She is a member of the ARC College of Experts.

Sarah Johnson's research centers on digital information and digital signals processing, particularly error correction codes that ensure secure and reliable data transmission across technologies like mobile phones, the Internet, and digital television. Her pioneering work on low-density parity-check codes has influenced communications reliability and implementation. She collaborates with industry, notably Quintessence Laboratories, on quantum key distribution for ultra-secure systems. In biomedical engineering, she develops technologies using digital signal processing to monitor patient recovery post-injury or disease. Key publications include her book, Iterative Error Correction: Turbo, Low-Density Parity-Check and Repeat-Accumulate Codes (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and recent papers such as "Belief Propagation Decoding of Primitive Rateless Codes" (IEEE Communications Letters, 2026) and "Shear Stress Targeted Delivery of Nitroglycerin to Brain Collaterals Improves Ischaemic Stroke Outcome" (Advanced Science, 2025). With over 5,800 citations on Google Scholar, her contributions have significant academic impact. Awards include the NSW Premier’s Prize for Excellence in Engineering & Communications Technologies (2017), Pro Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence (2007), ARC Future Fellowship, ARC Postgraduate Research Fellowship, and CSIRO postgraduate scholarship. She co-founded HunterWISE to support women in STEM and serves as Series Editor for Internet of Things in IEEE Communications Magazine.