Dr. Johnson has served as president and CEO of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center since 2015, where she also holds the M&T Bank Presidential Chair in Leadership and is a professor of oncology. The first woman to lead the historic cancer center, Dr. Johnson guided Roswell Park through massive growth, expanding immunotherapy, cellular therapy and community engagement while attracting world-renowned clinicians and scientists to Western New York. She strengthened Roswell Park’s reputation as a leader in translational research and precision oncology, ushering in innovations that bridge laboratory discoveries with new cancer treatments. Roswell Park has generated pivotal advances, from first chemotherapy research to PSA prostate cancer test to SurVaxM immunotherapy, producing remarkable results for patients with aggressive brain cancer. A pioneering cancer biologist, Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on novel therapeutic strategies, including vitamin D–mediated antiproliferative mechanisms and combination cytotoxic therapies. Prior to joining Roswell Park in 2002, she was deputy director of basic research at University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and a professor of pharmacology and medicine at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Nationally, she is an influential voice in oncology, chairing the National Cancer Institute Frederick National Laboratory advisory committee and serving on multiple National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute review panels. She has nearly 200 publications and two issued patents. Rated “exceptional” by NCI in her tenure, Roswell Park was one of the first organizations appointed to lead the “War on Cancer”, and the only NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York.
