Johnson Named NJMS Dean

Robert L. Johnson, MD

New Jersey Medical School '72

President William F. Owen, Jr., announced this week the appointment of Robert L. Johnson, MD, FAAP, as the Sharon and Joseph L. Muscarelle Endowed Dean at New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Johnson has been interim dean since 2005. Dean Johnson is the first alumnus to serve as the school’s leader. A member of the NJMS graduating class of 1972, he did his residency at Martland Hospital in Newark, then the principal teaching hospital for the medical school. After a two year research fellowship in adolescent medicine at New York University Medical Center, he returned to NJMS as an assistant professor in 1976.

His clinical expertise and research focus on adolescent physical and mental health, especially adolescent HIV and AIDS. Dean Johnson currently chairs the Governor’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Related Blood Borne Pathogens and the Newark Ryan White Planning Council. He is a board member of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education at the National Academies of Science and member of the Community Prevention Task Force of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

He has served as president of the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, chair of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Council on Graduate Medical Education, a member of the National Council of the National Institute of Mental Health and member of the NIH AIDS Research Council.