E. Patrick Johnson is the incoming dean of the Northwestern University School of Communication. He is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. He currently serves as the Chair of the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University and is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson is the Founding Director of the Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on Performance Studies, African-American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.