LaShaune P. Johnson, Ph.D. is a clinical professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health Sciences In this role, she collaborates closely with clinic medical and behavioral providers to develop, improve, and maintain community partnerships and helps to design and facilitate bi-directional community-engaged learning opportunities for students, providers and community members. She guides providers, students, and faculty through community-partnered research and evaluation projects and is responsible for training and supervising medical and graduate student learners in qualitative research design, medical humanities, medical anthropology/sociology, public health, community engagement and community health.

Her work focuses on improving Black cancer survivorship by studying the lived experiences of Black cancer patients/survivors and their informal caregivers. This focus includes arts-based methods to illuminate cancer patient stories, qualitative research with informal caregivers and clinical providers, and, most recently, mixed method approaches to understanding the underuse of medical/legal partnerships among Black cancer patients and their caregivers. Johnson is an enthusiastic community-based participatory researcher and culturally-responsive evaluator.    

Before joining the College of Medicine, she was a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Research and Public Health at Creighton University. She was also the Director of the Creighton University at Highlander Office, a community-engagement office in a Purpose-Built Community in North Omaha. Prior to that role, she was a Postdoctoral fellow in the School of Health Professions at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases-funded postdoctoral fellow at the UCONN Health, in Farmington, CT.

While Johnson was at Creighton, she was a member of the inaugural cohort for the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program. She was the Immediate Past President of the Midwest Sociological Society, having been the chair of the 2023 meetings, which focused on community-engaged teaching and learning. Johnson has also been trained by the Good Listening Project, as a Certified Listener Poet.  

She received her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Medieval/Renaissance Studies from Wellesley College. She has a master's degree and doctorate in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB). At UCSB, she was awarded an American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship. Johnson is a member of several professional societies, has published many papers and has presented at dozens of conferences. She has received numerous awards during her career, including the 2024 Dean’s Award for Graduate Faculty Excellence at Creighton University.