Lisa Johnson is an anthropological archaeologist and is interested in the materiality of ritual. Her work explores the distinct material relationships that emerge through ritualization. In particular, she studies formation processes of ritualized contexts and their material signatures through a comprehensive analytical approach that integrates methods such as paleoethnobotanical analyses, soil chemistry and her own analytical skills in micromorphology. She also carries out lithic analyses. Her geographic focus is Mexico and Central America. She has carried out fieldwork in Belize and is currently part of a multi-university, international collaborative research project working at the Classic Maya city and UNESCO world heritage site, Palenque, Mexico. She has also worked in cultural resources management (CRM) on projects in northern and central California.

Currently, she and her collaborators are planning a large-scale neighborhood study of Palenque which will integrate the diverse analytical specialties of the team with the goal of understanding the various historical trajectories to the emergence of urbanism and complexity in Mesoamerica.