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Paula Johnson

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Paula Johnson
14th President of Wellesley College
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 1, 2016
Preceded byH. Kim Bottomly
Personal details
Born
Paula Adina Johnson

1959 (age 64–65)
New York, U.S.
SpouseRobert Sands
EducationHarvard University (BS, 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] Johnson was the Grace A. Young Family Professor of Medicine[5] 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.[6] She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine[7] and has been featured as a national leader in medicine by the National Library of Medicine.[8]

Early life and education

Paula Johnson was born and raised in New York.[9] 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."[10]

Johnson's educational career began at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn. She then attended Radcliffe College at Harvard University, 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][6]

Medical career

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.[11] 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 has been an important voice in making the case that men and women differ at the cellular level. Because of cellular differences, a number of diseases manifest differently in men and women. This has important implications for research, treatment, and patient care. Johnson was the lead author on "Sex-Specific Medical Research: Why Women's Health Can't Wait" (2014), from the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health & Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital.[12]

"... men and women experience illness differently and this report looks closely at four diseases where this is especially true: cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, depression and Alzheimer's disease. The past two decades have shown not only that sex differences exist, but have produced scientific advancements that enhance our ability to discover why they occur and how we might adapt prevention, detection and treatment strategies for the benefit of women and men alike. Therefore, to ignore these differences challenges the quality and integrity of science and medicine."[12]

Traditionally, research studies and clinical trials of drugs and other treatments have tested men, not women. The lack of testing on women, combined with sex differences, has meant that women are much more likely to be negatively effected by side effects and differences in response to dosages when drugs are released to market.[13][14][15][16][12] The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 required that women and minorities be represented in any research funded by the NIH.[17] The resulting twenty years of research have supported the idea that significant sex differences occur in some diseases.[12]

Johnson argues further that men and women should be tested in separate research trials. Combining data from men and women as if they were a single population may yield results that are applicable to neither sex.[13][14][15][16][12] For example, research has resulted in recommendations that women take doses of the sleeping pill Ambien that are half the dosage recommended for men.[14] As a result of the work of Johnson and others, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued new regulations in 2014, requiring that preclinical research address issues of sex and gender inclusion, to "ensure that the health of the United States is being served by supporting science that meets the highest standards of rigour."[13][14][15][16]

Wellesley College presidency

Paula Johnson began working at Wellesley College on July 1, 2016.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20] 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.[21] In 2021, Johnson was nominated to the Governance and Nominating Committee, through the board of directors at Abiomed.[22] In 2023, Johnson was appointed to the board of directors at Johnson & Johnson.[23]

Personal life

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 who attended Harvard, a teenage daughter,[24] and two Havanese dogs.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Dr. Paula A. Johnson". Changing the Face of Medicine. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  2. ^ "Wellesley Names Harvard's Paula A. Johnson Its 14th President". Wellesley College News. 2016. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  3. ^ Fox, Jeremy C. (February 11, 2016). "Wellesley names its first African-American president". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  4. ^ Goodin-Smith, Oona (February 17, 2016). "Wellesley College names its first black president". USA Today. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  5. ^ Dutchen, Stephanie (May 18, 2016). "Johnson Named Young Family Professor of Medicine". Harvard Medical School.
  6. ^ a b "Paula Adina Johnson, M.D., M. P. H. Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Wellesley College. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  7. ^ Zimmerman, Rachel (February 12, 2016). "New Wellesley President, Dr. Paula Johnson: Advocate For Women's Health, Access To Care And Beyond". WBUR 90.9.
  8. ^ a b c "Paula Johnson MPH". NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH). Archived from the original on September 15, 2016. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  9. ^ a b "Biography". Wellesley College. Retrieved 2021-03-09.
  10. ^ Carapezza, Kirk (July 13, 2016). "New Wellesley President Brings Focus On Women's Health". WGBH News.
  11. ^ "Paula A. Johnson, Executive Director of the Connors Center for Women's Health". Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  12. ^ a b c d e Johnson, Paula; et al. (2014). "Sex-Specific Medical Research: Why Women's Health Can't Wait," from the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health & Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital (PDF). Brigham and Women's Hospital. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  13. ^ a b c Clayton, Janine A.; Collins, Francis S. (May 14, 2014). "Policy: NIH to balance sex in cell and animal studies". Nature. 509 (7500): 282–283. doi:10.1038/509282a. PMC 5101948. PMID 24834516.
  14. ^ a b c d Rabin, Roni Caryn (May 14, 2014). "Labs Are Told to Start Including a Neglected Variable: Females". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  15. ^ a b c Bonham, Ann (May 16, 2014). "Sex Cells! Addressing Sex Differences in Pre-Clinical Research". Wing of Zock.
  16. ^ a b c Johnson, Paula A. (February 10, 2017). "When Does Medicine Leave Women Behind?". NPR/TED. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  17. ^ "NIH Revitalization Act of 1993". Brigham and Women's Hospital. 2016.
  18. ^ "Wellesley College Names Harvard's Paula A. Johnson Its 14th President". Wellesley College. Retrieved 2021-05-28.
  19. ^ "Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax" (PDF). June 30, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  20. ^ "Biography". Wellesley College. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  21. ^ "President Paula Johnson Joins WBUR Town Hall on Racial Inequities Revealed by COVID-19". Wellesley College. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  22. ^ "Dr. Paula A. Johnson Joins Abiomed Board of Directors". www.businesswire.com. 2021-04-28. Retrieved 2021-05-13.
  23. ^ "Johnson & Johnson Names Paula A. Johnson, President of Wellesley College, to its Board of Directors | Johnson & Johnson". Content Lab U.S. 14 February 2023. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  24. ^ Mogolov, Lisa Scanlon (Summer 2016). "The Whole Woman". Wellesley Magazine. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
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