Master of Science in Epidemiology Faculty

Lucile L. Adams-Campbell, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Adams-Campbell is an epidemiologist who specializes in community health research, interventions, and outreach. With a focus on prevention, she studies issues that affect populations at the greatest risk for developing cancer. Dr. Adams-Campbell has participated and led several large cohort studies of African-American women and played a leading role in bringing the Boston University Black Women’s Health Study – the largest study of African-American women – to the District of Columbia. She is also the Associate Director of The Office of Minority Health & Health Disparities Research. Dr. Adams-Campbell’s research focuses on energy balance – diet and exercise. The District of Columbia has high rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, cancer death, and heart disease, all of which may be affected by diet and exercise. [CE concentration]

Traci Bethea, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Dr. Bethea is an Assistant Professor in the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research focuses on chemical and non-chemical stressors underlying cancer health disparities affecting Black women with a particular focus on estrogen receptor negative breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Dr. Bethea’s current work continues research on breast cancer subtypes in African American women and also examines risk factors for ovarian cancer and for sleep disturbances. In addition, her research on modifiable factors and breast cancer survivorship is supported by a career development award from the National Cancer Institute. New research directions involve the study of environmental and social factors as predictors of health disparities in cancer incidence and survivorship and aims to “bridge the gap” between the biologic, individual, and macroenvironmental levels. Dr. Bethea received a PhD in Environmental Health from Boston University School of Public Health and completed postdoctoral training in cancer epidemiology with the Black Women’s Health Study at the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University.

Jan Blancato, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Blancato is a Board Certified, ACMG, Clinical Cytogeneticist and Director of the Cytogenetics Shared Resource of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, which provides services in classical and molecular cytogenetics in both human tissues and mouse model specimens. [CE concentratio

Chiranjeev Dash, M.B.B.S., Ph.D, M.P.H.
Assistant Director of Health Disparities Research
Associate Professor

Dr. Dash is an epidemiologist and Associate Professor of Oncology in the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program and has a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics & Biomathematics. Dr. Dash’s research focuses on cancer epidemiology and prevention intervention studies among minorities and medically underserved populations. Some of his ongoing research projects include investigating the molecular epidemiology of oxidative stress among African-Americans, a pilot study of exercise among African-American men, and a study on the association of endocrine disruptors with breast density among women undergoing breast cancer screening. Dr. Dash is also part of transdisciplinary teams conducting research on physical activity interventions in high-risk health disparity populations, oral health disparities in the District of Columbia, and impact of environmental metal exposures on mammographic breast density. [CE concentration]

Anca Dragomir, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Dragomir is an epidemiologist and associate professor in the Department of Oncology, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics(BBB). She served as the epidemiologist for the Breast and Colon Cancer Family Registries Project (BCCFR) a large NCI contract awarded to the Innovation Center for Biomedical Informatics(ICBI) at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has also served as the Director of the Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology Shared Resource at LCCC. Her current research focuses on the epidemiology of colorectal and other gastrointestinal cancers, and also environmental exposures related to childhood cancers.  [Core Epidemiology/CE Concentration]

Kristi Graves, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Graves received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Kentucky. She is a tenured Associate Professor of Oncology and in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program. Dr. Graves has led a PCORI-funded project to test an intervention that aims to help Latina breast cancer survivors and their caregivers improve their quality of life. Dr. Graves is also co-leading an R01-funded project to explore symptoms experienced by patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer who received radioactive iodine treatment. In prior work, Dr. Graves investigated ways to inform people about genetic testing for genetic changes related to small increases in cancer risk. She is interested in translational research and research that improves cancer survivorship. [SBE concentration]

Seble Kassaye, M.D.
Assistant Professor

Dr. Kassaye is a clinical Infectious Diseases physician, and epidemiologist. Dr. Kassaye holds a strong interest in improving access to high quality care for those with limited resources, particularly interest in HIV during pregnancy, and in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Her plan is to study the molecular epidemiology of HIV; HIV drug resistance; and HIV/HCV co-infection to further improve HIV treatment and prevention strategies for women and their families. [IDE, CE concentrations]

Valeriy R. Korostyshevsky, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Korostyshevskiy received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Prior to becoming a faculty member in the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics he worked as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests include nonlinear differential equations applied to metabolic pathway analysis, biomedical image analysis, robust computations for big data sets. Dr. Korostyshevskiy is involved in collaborative research work with scientists from the Medical Center and the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. His teaching interests are Probability Theory, Consulting, Applied Linear Models and Regulatory Science.  [Core Biostatistics]

Christopher A. Loffredo, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Loffredo is an internationally known researcher and educator in the fields of cancer epidemiology and birth defects. His research focuses on environmental and genetic causes of cancer and birth defects, and especially on the roles that genetics play in mediating the risks from environmental chemical exposures. His currently funded research projects span liver, bladder, and lung cancer in relation to chronic infections such as HCV, and environmental factors such as smoking and secondhand smoke. He is the principal investigator of three NIH-funded R01 grants and several smaller studies, and he is a co-investigator in several ongoing projects on childhood cancer and congenital heart malformations in infants. Dr. Loffredo’s research record includes more than 50 peer-reviewed research papers and several books and book chapters. [CE concentration]

Kepher H. Makambi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Makambi is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics at Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Dortmund, Germany. Prior to joining Georgetown University, he was a tenure track Assistant Professor of Medicine (Biostatistics) at Howard University and the Director of the Biostatistics Core at Howard University Cancer Center. Dr. Makambi has many years of collaborative experience in the design and analysis of community intervention trials, behavioral studies, epidemiologic studies, basic science studies including proteomics and glycomics. His research interests include meta-analysis, adaptive design methods in clinical trials, structural equation modeling, statistical methods in epidemiology, and application of complex survey methods. [CORE Biostatistics]

Sarah Nomura, Ph.D.
GUMC Adjunct Instructor

Dr. Nomura is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School and is adjunct faculty at Georgetown University.  She has a M.S. in Nutrition and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.  She completed her postdoctoral training in the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparites at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her expertise is nutrition and diet-related exposures, and nutrition data collection methodologies and analysis.  Her research focuses on the role of nutrition in chronic disease prevention, including cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  She has particular interest in the contributions of modifiable lifestyle factors, such as diet, to health disparities. 

Suzanne O’Neill, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. O’Neill is an Associate Professor in Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Delaware in 2004. She received her postdoctoral training in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch of NHGRI as well as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research program involves three complementary areas in cancer prevention and control. These areas are linked by extramurally-funded projects that examine how patients and their health care providers interpret and apply novel risk information (germline genomic testing, genomic tumor testing, mammographic breast density) to make decisions that can reduce breast cancer morbidity and mortality. Her work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Prevent Cancer Foundation and several institutional grants. [SBE concentration]

Michael Stoto, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Stoto is a Professor of Health Systems Administration and Population Health. He is also a Senior Scholar with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health.   [Core Biostatistics]

Ming Tan, Ph.D.
Chair, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Professor

Dr. Tan has long standing research interests in methods for the design, monitoring and analysis of clinical trials and predictive analytics in clinical trials and Big Data. One of his current research foci is statistical methods for searching and evaluating multi-drug combinations utilizing both experimental data and system biology, innovative methods to optimally design and efficiently analyze pre-clinical drug combination therapies in cancer by integrating concepts in modern statistical and number-theoretic methods and pharmacology; and high dimensional genomics data analysis in Cancer Epidemiology, all funded by R01 grants from the NCI and NHLBI. Dr. Tan also has extensive collaborative research experience in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials (in both multi-center and single institutional settings), laboratory investigations, biomarker evaluation, genomics and epidemiological research.  [Core Biostatistics]

Kenneth Tercyak, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Tercyak is a tenured Associate Professor in the Departments of Oncology and Pediatrics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. At the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Tercyak serves as Co-Leader of the Cancer Prevention & Control research program in the Division of Population Sciences. He is a member of the Fisher Center for Hereditary Cancer & Clinical Genomics Research, a Senior Scholar at the Georgetown University Center for Child & Human Development, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Human Science in the School of Nursing & Health Studies. Dr. Tercyak’s research focuses on bio behavioral aspects of cancer risk, prevention, and intervention including public health genomics, tobacco prevention and control, and survivorship. His work in familial cancer examines health communication, decision making and decision support, and outcomes of genetic counseling and genomic testing. Dr. Tercyak’s work in tobacco control focuses on primary prevention, behavior change, high-risk special populations, and cessation. His work in survivorship addresses health behaviors and outcomes among children treated for cancer. [SBE concentration]

Judy Huei-Yu Wang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Oncology.

Dr. Wang’s research area focuses on culture, psychology, and behavioral medicine. She has received research awards from non-profit foundations and National Cancer Institute to investigate the impact of culture on cancer screening and survivor-ship experiences among Asian Americans. For example, she conducted mixed-methods research to study ethnic and cultural differences in patient-physician communication, stress-coping processes, and quality of life. She utilized community-based participatory research principles to develop culturally appropriate intervention programs to promote Chinese American immigrants’ health care outcomes, and tested those intervention programs through randomized controlled trials. [SBE concentration]