Biography

Darla Henderson, PhD is a western North Carolina native who grew up here in Rutherford County.

Darla is a 1989 graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. She then started her undergraduate studies at Emory University and completed her Bachelors of Science at Appalachian State University, where she met her husband, John Henderson. Darla then completed her PhD in biological chemistry at Duke University in 1998. She and John moved to New York and have one child, a 2021 graduate of Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy. They moved back to North Carolina in 2002, and Dr. Henderson has worked remotely for organizations in New York and Washington, D.C. since that time.

 

Dr. Henderson joined the TJCA Board of Directors in the summer of 2021. She is a member of the COVID-19 TaskForce.

Dr. Henderson's professional background spans science, scientific communication, publishing (research literature), and corporate and nonprofit leadership. She is currently a Director on the leadership team at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Dr. Henderson has served as a volunteer on numerous boards and committees, including the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association of Publishers, and numerous boards and committees through various scientific societies. Her work in developing excellent scientific information resources has been recognized with 12 awards from leading professional organizations. She also enjoys volunteering locally, and is actively engaged as a trustee on the Board for the Rutherford County Library System, a commissioner for the Town of Forest City Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, and serves on several local food systems boards. In their spare time, Darla and John enjoy gardening and traveling.