Da’Kuawn Johnson, a PhD student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), is a native Baltimorean and a proud product of Baltimore City public schools from kindergarten through high school. After graduating from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (Poly), Johnson stayed close to home and attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) as a Meyerhoff Scholar and was involved in research, studying the metabolism of bacteria. Outside of research, he played in the pit band for musicals, served as a student justice for non-academic infractions, tutored science and math, and was a teaching assistant in biology. He reveled in what he called “the nerdy environment” of UMBC and felt that it was both collaborative and relaxed in a way that perfectly suited his needs.
Da’Kuawn was enticed away from dreams of a career as an entrepreneur to one in science and medicine at the age of 8 when an attentive third-grade teacher noticed him excelling in math. This led to extra homework that he voraciously completed and dissection of cow eyeballs the next year (as a fourth-grader!) through the Ingenuity Project, an advanced STEM curriculum that he would stick with until he graduated from Poly. After UMBC, Da’Kuawn again chose to stay close to home to pursue a PhD at UMSOM, the institution attached to the hospital where he was born, the University of Maryland Medical Center. Da’Kuawn is a huge proponent of giving back and participated in the Talent Mentoring Program, where he and nearly 50 of his peers volunteer in Baltimore City elementary school classrooms with third-graders identified as advanced learners and gifted. He also made it a point to make frequent visits to Poly and current Ingenuity students.
