Tesheia Johnson Harris, MBA, MHS, serves as a Senior Advisor and Network Partner Leader for Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicine Development (EQBMED). Previously, she was the inaugural Chief Clinical Research Strategy and Development Officer at Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI). With more than two decades of visionary leadership, Ms. Johnson Harris began her research career in the biotech industry before moving to academia. After leading clinical trials programs at two other institutions, she rejoined Yale in 2005 where she has been the driving force behind the launch, development, and success of YCCI since their inception. Partnered with the late, Dr. Robert Sherwin, she helped to lead Yale to become one of the original 12 Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) to be funded by NIH in 2005, along with successfully leading Yale through three subsequent renewals to maintain continuous funding. She has a remarkable series of accomplishments as a national leader in clinical research administration and program development, including the co-founding of the Yale Cultural Ambassadors program, helping to shepherd many innovations in the use of technology including the EHR and clinical research management systems, mentoring and coaching staff, along with leading many national CTSA efforts, and served as the Yale Leader for the School of Medicine’s MOU and partnership with the FDA Office of Minority Health and Health Equity.
Ms. Johnson Harris is a member of The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation and serves as a member of the external scientific advisory board for multiple CTSA institutions. She was one of the team leaders for the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) on clinical trials diversity and a former member of the National CTSA Consortium Steering Committee Most recently, she has co-authored the EQBMED Site Maturity Assessment Model, which is a holistic, collaborative, site-driven, and formative assessment carried out with potential sites to catalogue their current capabilities and identify opportunities for growth in conducting industry-sponsored clinical trials and enriching diversity of those trials.
