BIO

Sandra K. Johnson is the Founder & CEO, SKJ Visioneering, LLC, a technology consulting company based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. In addition, she is an Independent Director on the boards of Regional Management Corporation (NYSE:RM) and Pan American Life Insurance Group (PALIG).  A "hidden figure", she is formerly the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), IBM Central, East and West Africa, and was based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her previous IBM assignments include working as a Business Development Executive (based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates), the CTO, Global Small and Medium Business for IBM Systems and Technology Group, the Linux Performance Architect, and managing sLinux Performance, WebSphere Database Development, and Java Server Performance teams within IBM development and research organizations. She has conducted research in a number of computer related areas and was part of the design team that developed the prototype for the IBM Scalable Parallel Processor (SP2), the base machine for “Deep Blue”, IBM’s world famous chess machine.

Dr. Johnson was a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, which consisted of the top 1% of IBM’s over 250,000 technical professionals at the time of her election. She has received numerous technical and professional awards, and is a Master Inventor with over 45 patents issued and pending. She has authored and co-authored over 80 publications, is Editor-in-Chief of the book Performance Tuning for Linux Servers, and is author of Inspirational Nuggets, Inspirational Nuggets Too, GREGORY:  The Life of a Lupus Warrior, and Soft Power: The Life of a STEM Trailblazer, her memoir.

Dr. Johnson has received several patent, publication and technical awards. She was awarded a certificate of completion for the Power, Innovation and Leadership Program, April 2023, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Executive Education. She has received a Rice University Laureates Award in 2023 as a Distinguished Alumni. She is recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Important Blacks in Technology (2007-2010). She is the recipient of the 2006 Summit Heritage Award from the IT Senior Management Forum, the 2006 Share the Light Award from the IBM Austin Black Diversity Network Group, the 2005 Black Engineer of the Year Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution in Industry, the 2002 YWCA of Greater Austin Woman of the Year in Science / Technology Award, the 2001 INROADS Supervisor of the Year Award, the 2000 National Society of Black Engineers’ Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Industry, and the 1998 Women of Color Technology Award for Research Leadership. She was featured in CyberRhythms:  Black Innovations in Technology at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in 2003, and profiled in several publications, including the September, 2004 issue of Ebony, the March 2003 issue of Essence, and the cover of the March, 2001 issue of Black Enterprise, which featured the top 25 Blacks in Technology.
 

Dr. Johnson earned B.S. (summa cum laude), and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. degree, in computer engineering, from Southern University, Stanford University, and Rice University, respectively. She is the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer engineering in the United States. She is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She is also an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Engineer.