Erin Johnson, Ph.D., a third-year medical student at Tulane University School of Medicine, has been appointed Diversity Research Committee Co-Chair of the Student National Medical Association. The SNMA is the nation’s oldest and largest independent, student-run organization dedicated to supporting underrepresented minority medical students since 1964.
Johnson completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Missouri-Columbia, a master’s in Biomedical Science at the University of Brighton, and a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at Cornell University. Her Ph.D. research focused on the role of neurogenesis in perceptual learning by examining how experience with olfactory information modulated the survival and integration of adult-born granule cells into the olfactory bulb neural network. Her current research interest focuses on areas of improvement in medical education for students underrepresented in medicine (URiM) by examining the temporal trends of burnout and challenges to well-being occurring in URiM medical students.