KERA LAWSON

Dr. Kera P. Lawson currently serves as Chief, Physical and Biological Sciences Branch at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. She is executing an annual budget of over $250M for Air Force basic research and development. She is responsible to the Director of AFOSR for the direction, supervision, and execution of basic research programs in biology, chemistry, life sciences, mathematics, and physics. This includes the direct supervision of 22 Department of the Air Force employees.

Dr. Lawson brings over decade of experience in science administration, merit review, and strategic planning across academia, the nonprofit sector, and government agencies. Prior to AFOSR, Dr. Lawson served as the Executive Director of Research Development at Howard University. She previously served as a Senior Health Services Researcher, providing oversight of the scientific and programmatic review processes and subject matter expertise on the research-to-translation life cycle for the Defense Health Agency’s Research and Development Directorate (J-9). Prior to that role, she served as a contract Scientific Review Officer at the NIH Center for Scientific Review, in support of the Population Science and Epidemiology and the Healthcare Delivery Methodology Integrated Review Groups. Dr. Lawson also held the position of Director of Research and Education for Paralyzed Veterans of America. Her duties included strategic planning for the Research and Education foundations, management of both boards of directors and the Scientific Advisory board, clinical practice guideline publication, and service as a liaison for PVA with federal and other nonprofit agencies. Before PVA, Dr. Lawson was a contractor for Veterans Health Affairs in the Office of Research and Development, assisting with peer review administration.  She was also contractor for the military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, where she managed a health effects research portfolio, conducted technological assessments, and analyzed the validity of biomedical and nanotechnological research. Prior to that role, she was a behavioral pharmacology research fellow in the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery.

EDUCATION

2002 Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans

2011 Doctorate of Philosophy in Biomedical Science - Neuroscience and Pharmacology, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN

2011 Postdoctoral Fellow – Vanderbilt University Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, Nashville, TN

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