Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch
Current Fellows
Meet the current fellows in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch and learn about research training opportunities.
Peter Aka, MS.C., M.P.H., Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Peter Aka, MS.C., M.P.H., Ph.D., joined the Infectious and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a postdoctoral fellow in October 2010. He earned a Ph.D. in cell genetics from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2005. His dissertation work focused on polymorphisms in DNA repair genes, DNA repair phenotype, and genotoxicity in radiation workers in Belgium. Dr. Aka received an M.P.H. from the School of Public Health, Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and an M.Pharm, (pharmaceutical medicine) in 1990 and an M.Sc. (molecular biology and biotechnology) from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels in 1997. Dr. Aka is a pharmacist, human geneticist and molecular biologist with training in epidemiology and biostatistics. Since 2006, he has been a senior scientific officer with the Genetics Group at the United Kingdom Medical Research Council Unit in The Gambia, West Africa, where he was conducting studies to elucidate host genetic polymorphisms in DNA repair and cell-cycle control genes in hepatocellular carcinoma in a population exposed to hepatitis B and aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are naturally occurring mycotoxins that are toxic and are among the most carcinogenic substances known. As a postdoctoral fellow in IIB, Dr. Aka will conduct research on immunogenetics of malaria in Burkitt lymphoma under the mentorship of Sam Mbulaiteye, M.D., investigator, and on host gene polymorphisms influencing control of hepatitis virus infections and liver cancer risk under Thomas O'Brien, M.D., senior investigator.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Anna Coghill, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Anna Coghill joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a Cancer Research Training Award postdoctoral fellow in November 2012. She received a B.S. in cell and molecular biology from Duke University (2005) and has an M.P.H. from the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health (2008). She earned a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Washington (2012), where she examined the role of HIV-related immune suppression in cancer survival for both AIDS-defining and non-AIDS-defining malignancies at the Uganda Cancer Institute under the mentorship of Drs. Polly Newcomb and Corey Casper. Prior to joining the IIB, Dr. Coghill was part of a research team that piloted a randomized trial of Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation among HIV and human herpes virus 8 (HHV8) co-infected adults in Uganda to investigate potential correlation between HIV-related immune suppression, inflammatory cytokines, and variation in HHV8 levels. During her post-doctoral training, Dr. Coghill plans to explore the immune response to Epstein-Barr virus as a marker of cancer risk with her mentor, Dr. Allan Hildesheim (Chief, IIB). She also plans to work with Dr. Eric Engels (senior investigator, IIB) to continue to study the role of HIV and immune suppression in cancer patient outcomes using data from the U.S. HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study and the Transplant Cancer Match Study.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Maria Constanza Camargo, Ph.D., M.S., M.H.A. - Research Fellow
Dr. Maria Constanza Camargo joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a postdoctoral fellow in July 2010. Dr. Camargo has an M.S. from the School of Public Health in Mexico, and an M.H.A degree from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia. She earned a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her dissertation work, conducted at IIB, focused on the role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in gastric carcinogenesis. She was previously a member of the research group led by Pelayo Correa, M.D., first at Louisiana State University and then at Vanderbilt University, studying Helicobacter pylori infection and gastric cancer epidemiology. During her postdoctoral training, Dr. Camargo has continued to study gastric cancer with her mentor, Charles Rabkin, M.D., senior investigator in IIB. She is leading the data analyses of NCI’s International EBV-Gastric Cancer Consortium. Dr. Camargo collaborated with researchers from the NCI’s Biostatistics Branch and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in analyzing U.S. gastric cancer registry data. In another area, she collaborated with investigators from the NCI’s Nutritional Epidemiology Branch in evaluating subsite-specific associations of noncardia gastric cancer with excess body weight. Dr. Camargo is also examining variations in H. pylori strains and antibody response among Latin American populations with high and low risk of gastric cancer. Finally, Dr. Camargo is studying possible hormonal explanations for sex differences in gastric cancer incidence, and the role of chronic inflammation as a mediator of H. pylori’s carcinogenicity.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Felipe A. Castro, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Felipe A. Castro joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a post-doctoral visiting fellow in August 2010. He earn a B.S. in veterinary medicine from the University of Caldas in Colombia, obtained his Master degree in virology at Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, and a doctoral degree in genetic epidemiology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 2009. During his Ph. D. training, he focused on the genetic epidemiology of cervical cancer at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ); dividing his time between the Infection and Cancer Division under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Pawlita and the Genetic Molecular Epidemiology Division under Professor Kari Hemminki. During his postdoctoral training, Dr. Castro has continued to study the epidemiology of HPV-related cancers with Aimee Kreimer, Ph.D., investigator, IIB; Jill Koshiol, Ph.D., investigator, IIB and Allan Hildesheim, Ph.D., Chief and senior investigator, IIB. Additionally, Dr. Castro has expanded upon his previous research by studying the epidemiology of hepatobiliary tract cancers under the mentorship of Dr. Koshiol. For these projects, he has focused on descriptive patterns of biliary tract cancers in the US, the immune response in gallbladder cancer and the role of autoimmune diseases in these cancer sites.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Benjamin Emmanuel, M.P.H. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow
Mr. Benjamin Emmanuel joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a special volunteer in August 2009, working under the mentorship of Sam M. Mbulaiteye, M.D., investigator in IIB, to complete his Master's thesis project titled "African Burkitt Lymphoma: Age-specific risk and correlations to malaria biomarkers." He then continued in IIB as a predoctoral fellow, starting in March 2010. Mr. Emmanuel graduated from Wheaton College (Illinois) in 2008 with a B.S. degree in biology and M.P.H. in epidemiology from the George Washington University School of Public Health in 2010. During his master's program he also worked at the District of Columbia Department of Health-Division of Disease Surveillance and Investigation. As a predoctoral fellow Mr. Emmanuel continues his work with Dr. Mbulaiteye on Burkitt's lymphoma and Kaposi sarcoma studies. Since 2010, Mr. Emmanuel has been part of the ongoing multi-year case-control study of Burkitt Lymphoma in three countries in East Africa, called EMBLEM (Epidemiology of Burkitt Lymphoma in East-African Children and Minors) and is the NCI study manager.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Krystle Lang Kuhs, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Krystle Lang Kuhs joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a Cancer Prevention Fellow in September 2012. Dr. Kuhs earned her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2011. Working with David B. Weiner, Ph.D., her doctoral research focused on the design and development of novel hepatitis C virus DNA vaccines able to induce potent T cell based immunity within the liver. In May 2012, Dr.Kuhs earned an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics. Dr. Kuhs’ research interests include the natural history of cancer causing viruses and prevention of cancer through prophylactic vaccination against oncogenic viruses. Dr. Kuhs will be working with Dr. Aimée Kreimer to investigate the epidemiology of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection at multiple anatomic sites and the potential for the HPV vaccine to impact these infections, work that will be nested within the Costa Rica Vaccine Trial.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Leticia Nogueira, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Leticia Nogueira joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a Cancer Prevention Fellow in September 2011. Dr. Nogueira earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Texas at Austin. Working with Dr. Stephen Hursting, she focused on the link between obesity and breast cancer. She also holds a Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health with a focus on quantitative methods. Dr. Nogueira's research interests are focused on the determinants of cancer clusters in Latin America countries and their relevance to health outcome disparities in the U.S. population. She will be working with Dr. Jill Koshiol combining molecular biology and epidemiology methods to investigate differences in gastrointestinal cancers incidence and survival.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Bridgett Rahim-Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Senior Research Fellow
Dr. Rahim-Williams is senior research fellow at the NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), with a joint appointment within DCEG in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB). Dr. Rahim-Williams has a Ph.D. in applied biomedical anthropology and two masters' degrees; public health (MPH) and health communication (MA). Prior to joining IIB, Dr. Rahim-Williams was a research assistant professor and social and behavioral scientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. She is a member of the American Public Health Association (APHA), NIH/ NIDDK Network of Minority Research Investigators (NMRI), Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), the American Pain Society (APS), Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues (SAAPHI). Additionally, she is a Fellow of the NIH Summer Institute on Aging Research, Fellow of the Summer Institute on Community-based participatory Research and a Fellow of the RAND Summer Institute on Aging Research. Moreover, she is the principal investigator of a pilot study using games for health to study pain, physical activity, and functional mobility among African American and non-Hispanic White women with knee osteoarthritis, and co-investigator on a study examining pharmacotherapy to reduce hazardous drinking among African American women with HIV/AIDS. Dr. Rahim-Williams' primary research interests are in the areas of minority women's health and health disparities associated with chronic disease co-morbidity. Her research at NIH is supported by a five-year career training and development grant award (DREAM, K22) from NIMHD. At the NIH, Dr. Rahim-Williams' research will examine cancer health disparities and co-morbidities among women with HIV/AIDS using large NCI cancer databases. In addition, she will be developing a career transition research program focusing on intramural and extramural research collaborations in minority women's health and health disparities across the life span.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Hilary Robbins, B.S. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow
Ms. Hilary Robbins joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a predoctoral fellow in October 2012. She received a B.S. in chemistry with a minor in biology from Duke University in 2010, and is near completion of an M.S.P.H. in global disease epidemiology and control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For her master’s thesis, as an Epidemology Scholar at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Ms. Robbins used data from the Los Angeles Mommy and Baby Project to investigate neighborhood- and individual-level predictors of intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Under the primary mentorship of Dr. Mahboobeh Safaeian, Ms. Robbins is now conducting methodologic research using data from the Costa Rica HPV Vaccine Trial. Specifically, she is evaluating the HPV L1-GST multiplex Luminex assay in the context of natural infection and vaccination, as well as assessing its comparability to other assays for HPV. Additionally, with Dr. Eric Engels, Ms. Robbins is analyzing data from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study to characterize the excess burden of cancer in HIV-infected people and assess the contribution of aging to the development of cancer in HIV patients.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Meredith Shiels, Ph.D. - Research Fellow
Dr. Shiels joined the IIB as a Cancer Research Training Award post-doctoral fellow in June 2009. She earned a B.S. in biobehavioral health from the Pennsylvania State University (2004) and both an M.H.S. (2006) and a Ph.D. (2009) in cancer epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For her dissertation, she examined the effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy on AIDS-defining cancers relative to other AIDS-defining events, estimated smoking-associated cancer incidence and survival among HIV+ and HIV- injection drug users and carried out a meta-analysis of non-AIDS-defining cancers among those with HIV. During her post-doctoral training, Dr. Shiels plans on continuing to study cancer among those with HIV/AIDS with her mentor, Dr. Eric Engels, using data from the U.S. HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study. She also plans on working with Dr. Engels and Dr. Anil Chaturvedi to study inflammation and lung cancer. Dr. Shiels was the recipient of a Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship for Women Scientists in Cancer Research in 2009.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Alan Wang, B.A. –Post-baccalaureate Fellow
Mr. Alan Wang joined the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB) as a post-baccalaureate fellow in August 2012. He graduated from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he received a B.A. in biology and anthropology and spent a few years working in a laboratory conducting researching on the role of a particular lipid in shaping membranes and mediating membrane fusion. At DCEG, he will be working for Thomas O’Brien, M.D., senior investigator in IIB, on projects studying chronic hepatitis C, vitamin D, and the hepatitis D virus. He is planning on entering graduate or medical school within a couple years.
DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications)
Learn about research training opportunities in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch.