David L. Cohen University Professor

Before his appointment by President Biden and unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David L. Cohen served as Senior Advisor to the CEO at Comcast Corporation as of January 1, 2020.  He was previously Senior Executive Vice President at Comcast, where his portfolio included corporate communications, legal affairs, government and regulatory affairs, public affairs, corporate administration, corporate real estate and security, and community impact.  Cohen also served as the company’s first chief diversity officer.

Before starting with Comcast in July 2002, Cohen served as a partner in and Chairman of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, one of the 100 largest law firms in the country.  From January 1992 to April 1997, Cohen served as Chief of Staff to the Honorable Edward G. Rendell, the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia.

Cohen served on many nonprofit boards, including as chair of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania and its Executive Committee; as a member of the trustee board and the executive committee of Penn Medicine; as a member of the board of directors and the executive committee of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; as chair of the Philadelphia Theatre Company; as a member of the Board of the National Urban League; and as chair of the corporate board of advisors of UnidosUS.  Cohen also serves as a member of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission.  He also served on the board of directors of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. and PNC Bank, National Association.

A native of New York, Cohen graduated with a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1977 and with a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School summa cum laude in 1981.  Cohen has received numerous honors and recognitions, including Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University.  Prior to his appointment to Ottawa, he lived in Philadelphia with his wife.

Current Chairholder

Kevin Johnson, MD, MS, FAAP, FAMIA, FACMI

Dr. Johnson is a pioneer of medical information technologies to improve patient care and safety. He is a board-certified pediatrician who has aligned the powers of medicine, engineering and technology to improve the health of individuals and communities.

In work that bridges biomedical informatics, bioengineering and computer science, he has championed the development and implementation of clinical information systems and artificial intelligence to drive medical research. He has encouraged the effective use of technology at the bedside, and he has empowered patients to use new tools that help them to understand how medications and supplements may affect their health. He is interested in using advanced technologies such as smart devices and in developing computer-based documentation systems for the point of care. He also is an emerging champion of the use of digital media to enhance science communication, with a successful feature-length documentary describing health information exchange, a podcast (Informatics in the Round) and most recently, a children’s book series aimed at STEM education featuring scientists underrepresented in healthcare.

Dr. Johnson holds joint appointments in the DBEI and in the Department of Computer and Information Science of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He serves as Vice President for Applied Informatics in the University of Pennsylvania Health System and as a Professor of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Before arriving at Penn, he served as the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he had taught since 2002. As Senior Vice President for Health Information Technology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he led the development of clinical systems that enabled doctors to make better treatment and care decisions for individual patients, and introduced new systems to integrate artificial intelligence into patient care workflows.

The author of more than 150 publications, Dr. Johnson has held numerous leadership positions in the American Medical Informatics Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He leads the American Board of Pediatrics Informatics Advisory Committee, directs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Library of Medicine, and is a member of the NIH Council of Councils. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, American College of Medical Informatics and Academic Pediatric Society. He has received awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Academy of Pediatrics, among many others.