Wellesley College names Dr. Paula Johnson as its 14th president

Wellesley College has named Dr. Paula A. Johnson, a professor and faculty member at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, as its 14th president effective July 1. She will be Wellesley’s first African American president.

Current president Kim Bottomly, who has been on the job since 2007, announced last April that she would be leaving this year.

Johnson is chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she founded and is executive director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology.

“I am honored and humbled to be asked to serve as Wellesley’s president, and I view this presidency as the capstone of my career, which has been devoted to the advancement of women through education and faculty development, and by working to improve their health and well-being,” Johnson said, in a statement.

You can hear about Dr. Johnson’s take on His and Hers… Healthcare in this TED Talk:

Students chat up Dr. Johnson here:

After attending Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Dr. Johnson received her MD and MPH degrees from Harvard.Her mother-in-law, Phyllis Rosenthal Sands, is a proud Wellesley alumna from the Class of 1946.

Dr. Johnson is a native of Brooklyn and currently lives in Brookline. We’ll see if she can make do with this little abode later this year.