TJ is in the perfect line of work for someone with her demeanor. She's calm under stress, she knows how to do her job well and she's also deeply caring. She's an excellent medic and would've been an excellent doctor if she had the chance to attend medical school. Fate didn't want that for her and she was forced to step up and learn pretty much on the job when she became the Destiny Lead medic.

TJ is aware that sometimes she's way over her head during a medical crisis. People aboard Destiny look up to her when it comes to medical decisions and they trust and have faith in her which can be overwhelming sometimes. TJ doesn't want to let them down and she works hard every day to learn more and be prepared for what life aboard an alien vessel decides to throw at her. TJ gives her best every day.

She's emotional. She knows she needs to be practical and make rational choices but that doesn't always work for her. She feels too much and cares too much about those under her care as well as those close to her. That doesn't mean she can't make the hard choices but it'll affect her profoundly. It's hard to separate the job from her personal feelings sometimes. A good example is the still unsolved issues between TJ and her superior officer; TJ doesn't know what to do with those feelings yet. She cares about him. He complicates natters unintentionally for her, but she tries to keep a professional stance even if everyone aboard knows they had a child together.

Carmen's death caused TJ to struggle with her own sanity for sometime. She believed the baby had been saved by aliens from a planet they had visited. While the rational part of her knows Carmen is dead, TJ likes to pretend that she's safe someplace else and that one day they will be reunited.

Tamara Johansen was born in a small town in the Midwest and she was the oldest of two children, both girls. She had a modest but happy upbringing. Her father was a tailor and her mother worked a bank teller. It was TJ's father who taught her how to do stitches; he stitched himself in after an injury and he showed TJ how to do it. He also took her camping often which instilled her a love for outdoors and nature in general.

A good student, TJ went to nursing school after high school aiming for medical school in the future. She knew she didn't have the means to pay for it and enlisted on the Air Force knowing that eventually she would be able to get a scholarship through the military channels. TL thrived through officer training and was stationed at the Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs as a field medic. The Stargate Program was something TJ had never dreamed of and she welcomed the challenge and the opportunities that it offered her.

A couple years later, TJ was assigned to Icarus Base and worked Dr. Simms, the lead medic at the base. She admired his work ethic and knowledge and learned a lot from him. During this period she met and stared an affair with her commanding officer, Colonel Everett Young, a married man. TJ knew she was in over her head and had conflicting feelings towards the Colonel. There were days she thought she loved him and some days she wasn't all that sure.

TJ decided to end the affair when she found out she was pregnant with his child. The whole situation was getting out of hand and she wanted to keep the baby but she wouldn't do that while stationed at Icarus with Colonel Young. Hoping to avoid any further complications and knowing her scholarship to a Seattle University medical school had been approved TJ decided to leave the Air Force. Unfortunately, the attack at the base and the evacuation to the other end of the nine chevron address, sent TJ and around 80 others survivors to the Destiny, and cut off from Earth. With Dr. Simms' death, the responsibilities of becoming the lead field medic fell to TJ's hands.