Simmons College

LaShaune Johnson is a visiting Assistant Professor in the Sociology department at Simmons College. She is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara and is a Wellesley College graduate.

She is a lymphoma and breast cancer survivor. For the past two years, she has been an active volunteer in the Philadelphia-area breast cancer community. She has spoken about breast cancer in All You magazine and on the Philadelphia-area NBC affiliate.

She is a qualitative researcher whose interests are in health disparities, the "grocery store gap", critical medical anthropology, gender, and the life course. In her recent research, she interviewed African-American breast cancer survivors and activists in the breast cancer community in the Southeast and Middle Atlantic states. In her research, she analyzed African-American breast cancer survivors' and African-American breast cancer organizations/programs discourses about racial identity. In this work, LaShaune found that these organizations are reforming the identity of the mainstream breast cancer survivors at the same time its members are dealing with intra-racial class conflicts.

Before coming to Simmons, LaShaune taught courses at Temple University, Rutgers University-Camden, and Holy Family University. She is a long-time Red Sox fan. She was raised in Oklahoma.