Crystal C. Watkins Johansson is an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist and associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as the director of the Sheppard Pratt Memory Clinic in Neuropsychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. Johansson was the first Black female Meyerhoff Scholar to obtain an MD/PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During her MD/PhD she developed a novel treatment for gastrointestinal in patients with diabetes that led to a patent for a pharmacological compound in 2000. Johansson is a practicing neuropsychiatrist with a focus on geriatric psychiatry and she conducts brain imaging research as well as research on cancer in African American women.
Early life and education
Johansson was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She wanted to become a doctor from a young age. She attended public school in Baltimore City and became the first Black president of the student government at Dulaney High School in Cockeysville. During high school, she completed an internship through the Nursing Program at Johns Hopkins to begin to explore the field of medicine.
In 1991, Johansson attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for her undergraduate education. She was supported by the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program which is a competitive program that funds the undergraduate degrees of underrepresented minorities at UMBC. She majored in biological sciences and was interested in diabetes research since her grandmother had diabetes. Johansson graduated in 1995 with a Bachelors of Science.
After completing her undergraduate degree, Johansson pursued her MD/PhD training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. During her PhD training, she worked in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience under the mentorship of Solomon H. Snyder, whom she met as an undergraduate at UMBC. She became a Society for Neuroscience Fellow, an Academic Medicine Fellow of the National Medical Fellowships and Bristol-Myers Squibb Inc. Her thesis was titled "Nitric Oxide and Carbon Monoxide: Novel Neurotransmitters in the Enteric Nervous System". For her graduate work, she explored the mechanisms underlying gastrointestinal dysfunction in patients with diabetes. She found that in mouse models of diabetes, there is a significant reduction in neuronal nitric oxide synthase mRNA and that insulin treatment restores the nNOS levels. Further, the delay in gastric emptying can be reversed with the phosphodiesterase inhibitor, sildenafil. Her PhD work led to a patent for a drug to treat neuropathic pain in patients with diabetes and the work was covered in the Wall Street Journal. Johansson completed her MD/PhD in 2003, becoming the first female Meyerhoff Scholar to obtain an MD/PhD. Johansson was also one of only three Black women at the time to graduate with a doctorate in molecular and cellular neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Johansson continued her medical training at JHU, pursuing her residency training in psychiatry. She completed her Internship at Sinai Hospital at Johns Hopkins in 2004, and then went on to complete her residency training in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in 2008. During her residency, she became the Chief Resident of Psychiatry and also completed her postdoctoral work under the mentorship of Martin G. Pomper using the novel Positron Emission Tomography ligand, TSPO, to visualize neuroinflammation in the human brain. She then completed a fellowship in Mood Disorders and Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins in 2009. She then completed another Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry in 2011.
Career and research
In 2011, Johansson became an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. In 2014, she became the Director of the Sheppard Pratt Memory Clinic in Neuropsychiatry and has since been promoted to associate professor at JHU. As a clinician and a professor, Johansson treats patients, conducts clinical research, and educates the future generation of physicians.
Johansson is actively involved in advocacy, mentorship, and education. She co-founded a literacy program for youth and teaches adolescents about preventing teen pregnancy. She is also on the ABRCMS Steering Committee which hosts the largest professional conference for underrepresented students. On the clinical side, Johansson volunteers with the Adolescent Depression Awareness Program which educated high school students, teachers, and parents about adolescent depression. She has been featured on several news broadcasting networks such as WBALTV, The Maryland Daily Record, The Baltimore Sun, WYPR, Science Magazine, and ConscienHealth.