John Johnson to Health/Science team

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Below is the memo from Health/Science Editor Tami Dennis announcing the move :

John Johnson, who has been covering space and physics on the National Desk, is joining the larger health/science team effective immediately.

John, who has been at the Times 21 years, began his career here in the former Valley edition. He covered the porn industry and wrote the first story (with former Times’ reporter Ron Soble) pointing the finger at the Menendez brothers in their parents’ slayings. He also wrote a book about the killings that was made into a TV movie. He later worked as city editor in the Ventura edition before becoming a state reporter, assigned to cover the Central California coast. Five years ago, he took on the space and physics beat, covering the space shuttle program, JPL and Caltech. In his recent reporting, he’s traveled to Switzerland to write about the Large Hadron Collider, Louisiana to write about gravity wave detectors and the mountains of New Mexico to write about the largest star survey in history.

Before coming to the Times, he worked in McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington bureau (during the Reagan years) and as an environmental reporter at the Sacramento Bee.

John’s hobbies include collecting old vinyl R-and-B records, which he says he boorishly pulls out for visitors when he’s had too much scotch. He has a son who attends law school at Notre Dame.

---Tami Dennis, Health/Science Editor