Paula Johnson | |
---|---|
14th President of Wellesley College | |
Assumed office July 1, 2016 | |
Preceded by | H. Kim Bottomly |
Personal details | |
Born | Paula Adina Johnson 1959 (age 64–65) New York,U.S. |
Spouse | Robert Sands |
Education | Radcliffe College (BS) Harvard University (MD,MPH) |
Paula Adina Johnson (born 1959) [1] is an American cardiologist and the current president of Wellesley College. She is the first Black woman to serve in this role. [2]
Prior to her role as president of Wellesley,Johnson founded and served as the inaugural executive director of the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health &Gender Biology, [3] as well as Chief of the Division of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital. [4]
Paula Johnson was born and raised in New York. [5] She spoke to WGBH about her childhood:"I was very fortunate growing up in Brooklyn. I have one sister,and from a very early age my mother focused on us not only being well-educated,but also thinking independently. I think that gave me the latitude to think differently about my college education. I went to Harvard Radcliffe,which allowed me to really have my first introduction to women's health." [6]
Johnson's educational career began at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn. She then attended Radcliffe College,where she majored in biology and graduated in 1980. Afterward,she attended Harvard Medical School. Developing an interest clinical epidemiology,she also studied at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1985 she received her medical doctor's degree (M.D.) and a master's in public health (MPH) degrees from Harvard. [1] [7]
After graduating,Johnson began a residency in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital,where she decided to specialize in cardiology. [1] In 1990,she became the first African American ever to hold the position of chief medical resident at the hospital. [8] [1]
Johnson worked in the hospital's cardiac transplant unit and served as director of Quality Management Services. As chief of the Division of Women's Health,she focused on women's access to cardiology care and the quality of that care. [9] Johnson has also focused much of her work on educating and empowering African-American women,who are 50 percent more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than white women. [8]
Johnson was the Grace A. Young Family Professor of Medicine [10] in the field of women's health,an endowed professorship named in honor of her mother,at Harvard Medical School. She was also Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. [7] She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine [11] and has been featured as a national leader in medicine by the National Library of Medicine. [8]
Paula Johnson began working at Wellesley College on July 1,2016. [12] In the 2020 fiscal year,Johnson was compensated $585,640 with an additional estimated bonus of $138,371 in her role as College President. Johnson is the third highest paid employee of Wellesley College. [13]
During the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020,Paula Johnson joined Massachusetts Governor Baker's 14-member Higher Education Working Group (HEWG) to develop a framework to safely reopen campuses. [14] In June,she also joined a WBUR digital town hall to analyze how COVID-19 revealed and exacerbated racial inequalities with U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley and Dr. Mary Travis Bassett. [15] In 2021,Johnson was nominated to the Governance and Nominating Committee,through the board of directors at Abiomed. [16] In 2023,Johnson was appointed to the board of directors at Johnson &Johnson. [17]
Johnson resides in Wellesley,Massachusetts,with her family. She is married to Robert Sands,a rheumatologist at Atrius Health of Harvard University and has a son and a daughter. [5]
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley,Massachusetts. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary,it is a member of the Seven Sisters Colleges,an unofficial grouping of current and former women's colleges in the northeastern United States.
The University of California,Irvine Medical Center is a major research hospital located in Orange,California. It is the teaching hospital for the University of California,Irvine School of Medicine.
Joia Stapleton Mukherjee is an associate professor with the Division of Global Health Equity at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Since 2000,she has served as the Chief Medical Officer of Partners In Health,an international medical non-profit founded by Paul Farmer,Ophelia Dahl,and Jim Kim. She trained in Infectious Disease,Internal Medicine,and Pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Mukherjee has been involved in health care access and human rights issues since 1989,and she consults for the World Health Organization on the treatment of HIV and MDR-TB in developing countries. Her scholarly work focuses on the human rights aspect of HIV treatment and on the implementation of complex health interventions in resource-poor settings.
Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey is an American medical doctor and executive who served as president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 2003 to 2017. She was the first woman and the first African-American to head the foundation,which has an endowment of about $8 billion and distributes more than $400 million a year. She has been named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes several times,and one of The Grio's History Makers in the Making. She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Amalie Moses Kass was an American historian at Harvard Medical School. She wrote about obstetrics and midwifery.
Margaret Ann "Peggy" Hamburg is an American physician and public health administrator,who is serving as the chair of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and co-chair of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). She served as the 21st Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from May 2009 to April 2015.
Gary L. Gottlieb,is a prominent psychiatrist,healthcare executive and healthcare investor who served as CEO of Partners in Health from 2015-2019.
JudyAnn Bigby is an American doctor and the former Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2013. She currently serves as director of the Harvard Medical School Center of Excellence in Women's health.
Laurie Hollis Glimcher is an American physician-scientist who was appointed president and CEO of Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in October 2016. She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019. Glimcher has been at the center of controversies related to animal rights activists,excessive corporate payments,and research misconduct.
Jean Baker Miller (1927–2006) was a psychiatrist,psychoanalyst,social activist,feminist,and author. She wrote Toward a New Psychology of Women, which brings psychological thought together with relational-cultural theory.
Helen Kim Bottomly is an immunologist and the former president of Wellesley College,serving from August 2007 to July 2016. Bottomly was the first scientist to become a president at Wellesley College. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2009. She chaired the board of directors of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and was a member of the advisory council of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. In May 2018,she was appointed as the chair of the board of the trustees for the Fulbright University Vietnam,which she stepped down from in 2019.
Vivian Winona Pinn is an American physician-scientist and pathologist known for her advocacy of women's health issues and concerns,particularly for ensuring that federally funded medical studies include female patients,and well as encouraging women to follow medical and scientific careers. She served as associate director for research on women's health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH),concurrently was the inaugural director of NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health. Pinn previously taught at Harvard University,Tufts University,and Howard University College of Medicine. Since retiring from NIH in 2011,Pinn has continued working as a senior scientist emerita at the Fogarty International Center.
Camara Phyllis Jones is an American physician,epidemiologist,and anti-racism activist who specializes in the effects of racism and social inequalities on health. She is known for her work in defining institutional racism,personally mediated racism,and internalized racism in the context of modern U.S. race relations. During the COVID-19 pandemic,Jones drew attention to why racism and not race is a risk factor and called for actions to address structural racism.
Richard Allen Williams is an American physician who is founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists. He previously served as the President of the National Medical Association.
Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin is an Ethiopian politician and physician who served as the Minister of Health from 12 March 2020 until 8 February 2024. Prior to her appointment,Lia served as State Minister of Health from November 2018. She also served as an Executive Director at the University of Michigan's Center for International Reproductive Health Training (CIRHT) in Ann Arbor,Michigan,as a CEO and Vice Provost in St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) in Addis Ababa and as a Project Director of USAID's Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) at Jhpiego-Ethiopia.
Lynn From was a Canadian physician who specialized in dermatology and skin pathology. From was the pathologist-in-chief at Toronto's Women's College Hospital from 1981 to 1992 and the head of dermatology from 1993 to 2000.
Michelle Asha Albert is an American physician who is the Walter A. Haas Lucie-Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology and professor of medicine at the University of California,San Francisco. Albert is director of the UCSF Center for the Study of Adversity and Cardiovascular Disease. She is president of the American Heart Association. She served as the president of the Association of Black Cardiologists in 2020–2022 and as president of the Association of University Cardiologists (2021–2022). Albert is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine,the American Society of Clinical Investigators and the Association of American Physicians.
Paula Ann Rochon is a Canadian geriatrician. She is the Retired Teachers of Ontario/ERO Chair in Geriatric Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Ruth L. Collins-Nakai is a retired Canadian cardiologist,educator,researcher,physician leader,healthcare advisor,and public health advocate.