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Biography
Nia Johnson received her BA from Oakwood University. She then went on to obtain her Masters of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and her Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law in 2019. Nia is currently the Founder and CEO of the Mazingira Bioethics Group, LLC – a bioethics consulting company that focuses on clinical ethics mediation, minority health, and general bioethics. Previously, she ran and founded The Neighborhood Bioethicist - a bioethics blog geared towards millennials and Black Americans. She has completed internships in academic and community hospitals and has also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Law and Medicine from 2018 to 2019. Her research interests include causes of mistrust in medicine in the black diaspora, opinion research, and examining bioethics through the black gaze. During the summer of 2020 she worked on multiple projects regarding the impact of COVID-19 and policing on Black American communities. She has been published in the American Journal of Law and Medicine, the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, and the Journal of Urban Health.
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Selected Awards & Presentations
July 2020
Yale University - Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics
Morality While Living Under Oppression: Riots, Resistance, and Bioethics
The Economics of Body Modification, Medical Decision Making Under the Male Gaze, and Bioethics
Feburary 2020
Boston University School of Law - Racial Bias, Disparities and Oppression in the 1L Curriculum: A Critical Approach to the Canonical First Year Law School Subjects
On Integrating Slave Law into the First-Year Contracts Course
May 2019
Boston University School of Law - Melville M. Bigelow Scholarship Award
Awarded to students that demonstrate great promise as scholars and teachers in the law
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Education
August 2019 to Present
Harvard University
Doctor of Philosophy Student, Health Policy, May 2024
Juris Doctor Candidate, May 2019
Boston University School of Law
Editor-in-Chief, American of Journal of Law and Medicine
Vice President, Boston University Health Law Association, 2017-2018
Black Law Student’s Association
Masters of Bioethics, August 2016
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Masters of Bioethics Social Chair, 2016
Penn Alumni Interview Program Member
Capstone: Bioethics: A Call for the Prestige
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, International Studies, Minor Political Science, May 2015
Oakwood University
Dean’s List (All four years)
Miss Oakwood University, 2014 – 2015 (selected as an Ebony Magazine Campus Queen, 2015)
Oakwood University Aeolians, 2012-2015
Logistics Committee Member, Oakwood University Aeolians, 2013-2014
Oakwood University Supreme Court Justice, 2013-2014
Vice President, Pre-Law Society, 2012-2013
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Publications
Forthcoming 2020
Black Americans’ Views on Health Policy: Implications for the 2020 Election.
June 2020
When Blackness Doesn’t Fade After A Pandemic: An Appeal to Acknowledge the Unequal Burden of Social Isolation.
Summer 2019