Jeannette Johnson, Ph.D.

Dr. Johnson received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD in physiological psychology at the University of Vermont. She received subsequent training at the University of Hawaii in cross-cultural psychology under Dr. Anthony Marsella. She has over 40 years’ administrative and scientific experience both managing and conducting research with populations at high risk for health disparities. She has studied and worked with Polynesian cultures, especially the New Zealand Maori population and Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans. For ten years she served as the Director of the Division on Drug Abuse Research and Program Evaluation at the University of Maryland, Department of Psychiatry where she conducted numerous grant-supported projects that involved HIV/AIDS prevention and substance use disorder treatment. Before this she was the Janet B. Wattles Distinguished Professor at SUNY-Buffalo in the School of Social Work as well as the Director of the Research Center on Children and Youth. She has conducted grant-supported program evaluations that involved HIV/AIDS prevention programs for people who use drugs and Native American populations, barriers to substance use disorder treatment in the Latino population, and the development of program implementation manuals for HIV/AIDS, substance use, and pregnancy prevention. She helped develop and evaluate the Native American Prevention Project against AIDS and Substance Abuse (NAPPASA), a multi-component prevention program targeting the prevention of HIV/AIDS and substance use in Native American school aged children in Arizona. This large scale, longitudinal study developed and evaluated a newly integrated approach to school-based prevention programs for rural Native American youth and their non-Native American peers. The project’s mission was to collaborate with the Native American community to plan, develop, implement, and evaluate culturally sensitive HIV/AIDS, alcohol, and other drug abuse prevention programs. Her scientific administrative experience included work as a Program Officer at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Special Assistant to the Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and Scientific Review Officer at the National Institute on Aging where she led the NIA-Neuroscience Committee. After retiring from the NIH, she was hired as a contractor to work with the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Science (NCATS) in areas of translational science that included rare diseases, the Clinical and Translational Science Award program (CTSA), and conference grants. She has been a contributing editor for several journals and authored over 100 publications, including the book “Resilience and Development: Positive Life Adaptations”. Dr. Johnson has presented workshops for and about children of alcoholics throughout the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. She has studied and worked with Polynesian cultures, especially New Zealand Maoris. During her work in New Zealand with the National Society on Drug Dependence, she was a founding patron of the New Zealand National Association for Children of Alcoholics. Dr. Johnson’s grandmother was a Canadian Indian of Huron ancestry.