Sterling Johnson, PhD

Jean R. Finley Professor of Geriatrics and Dementia
Department of Medicine
Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology

Dr. Johnson is a clinical neuropsychologist with research interests in early identification of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship. Johnson is Principal Investigator of the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP), a longitudinal cohort study of more than 1,700 people at varying levels of risk for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. He is the associate director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute as well as the associate director and Biomarker Core leader in the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Johnson is also the lead principal investigator for the ADRC Consortium for Clarity in ADRD Research Through Imaging (CLARiTI). ADRC’s nationwide collaborate in CLARiTI for the purpose of elucidating the multiple intersecting etiologies that cause cognitive impairment and that may be present in any given patient. CLARiTI launched in 2023 and will establish standardized brain imaging and blood plasma test protocols to analyze levels and types of amyloid and tau, which are hallmark biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease, together with assays of other proteinopathies.

Research Interests

Dr. Johnson’s current projects include the following:

• Disambiguating the multiple causes of cognitive decline in addition to Alzheimer’s disease
• The WRAP longitudinal study
• Tau and amyloid imaging in people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease
• Developing better methods for identifying cognitive decline

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