Tesheia Johnson, MBA, MHS, is Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of YCCI and the Director for Clinical Research for Yale School of Medicine, where she provides leadership and direction in the area of clinical research. Her career has focused on the development of clinical research programs and support infrastructure. She is the co-founder, along with community leaders of the AME Zion Church and Junta for Progressive Action, of the Yale Cultural Ambassadors program, launched more than ten years ago with a mission to catalyze the sustainable advancement of patient diversity, equity, and inclusion in clinical research. Prior to assuming her current position, she held positions as Assistant Dean for Clinical Research at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Director of Clinical Trials at the University of Wisconsin Madison. She has served as a consultant for several academic centers interested in establishing clinical research programs and as a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health.

Ms. Johnson is nationally recognized for her expertise in the design and setup of clinical research programs. She has been an invited speaker at many national and international conferences on topics such as developing funding for central support for clinical research, staffing models for clinical and translational research, training programs for research professionals, clinical research regulation, and contracting and budget negotiation. She has served as Chair and co-Chair for several National Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Consortium Group/Committees. She sits on the external scientific advisory boards for the CTSAs at Columbia University, Stanford University, NYU, Washington University, Rockefeller, the Universities of Buffalo, Colorado, Florida, Rochester, and Washington and at University College London Hospitals’ Biomedical Research Centre.  Ms. Johnson has also been recently appointed to the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) National CTSA Program Steering Committee, which provides direction to NCATS and the more than 60 CTSA-funded institutions around the country, including Yale.

Ms. Johnson also one of the team leaders chairing the, Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) on clinical trials diversity. She serves as the Yale Leader for the School of Medicine partnership with the FDA Office of Minority Health and Health Equity which also focuses on diverse participation in clinical research.  (FDA-MOU 225-18-015) and is one of the leaders of the Yale Contract from the FDA entitled Leveraging Community Engagement and Electronic Health Record Strategies to Promote Diverse Participation in COVID-19 Clinical Trials (Contract # 75F40120C00174).