Jane E. Henney

Jane E. Henney is an American physician who was the first woman to serve as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, she served at the FDA between 1998 and 2001. Previously she had worked at the FDA from 1992 to 1994 as deputy commissioner for operations under then commissioner David Aaron Kessler, MD and then at the University of New Mexico (UNM), where she was vice president of the health sciences center.

Jane Henney was born in Woodburn, Indiana. Henney received her undergraduate training at Manchester College, an MD degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and did postgraduate work at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Trained as a medical oncologist, she joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1976, working in the Cancer Therapy and Evaluation Program. She is married to James Robert Graham III, MD, who also has had a distinguished career as a physician-leader. After leaving the FDA she joined the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company Astrazeneca.

She was named senior vice president and provost for health affairs at the University of Cincinnati in 2003.