Clayton, Janine Austin (1962-)

A Washington, D.C. native, Clayton was born in 1962 to parents who worked in the medical field. She attended Johns Hopkins University, where she graduated with a B.A. in Natural Science in 1984 before acquiring her M.D. at Howard University College of Medicine in 1989. At Howard, Clayton discovered her love for the field of ophthalmology, and she later completed her residency in the subject at the Medical College of Virginia. Howard is also where she first met Dr. Vivian Pinn, the first director of ORWH, who was a professor there until 1991.

Clayton first joined NIH as a senior staff fellow at the National Eye Institute (NEI) in 1994, studying uveitis and ocular immunology. She remained at NEI until 2008, serving first as a staff clinician in 1998 and becoming the Deputy Clinical Director in 2001. It was while she was at NEI that Clayton began to examine the sex differences in eye diseases such as dry eye, Sjogren’s syndrome, and others.

In the mid-2000s, Pinn approached the Director of NEI to request that Dr. Clayton join ORWH as her special assistant. Clayton and Pinn formed a successful working relationship, and Clayton became Pinn’s Deputy Director from 2008-2011. When Pinn retired in 2011, Clayton succeeded her as ORWH Director. In this role, Clayton has expanded the work of ORWH by creating new policies, including Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV), and building on legacy programs, like Specialized Centers of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences.