Michael Kebede, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Michael Kebede, Ph.D., M.P.H., joined the NCI in 2025 as a Cancer Prevention Program postdoctoral fellow with a primary appointment in the Biostatistics Branch and a secondary appointment in the Center for Cancer Research (CCR). Dr. Kebede received his M.P.H. in cancer epidemiology from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., in 2019 and his Ph.D. in cancer epidemiology from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, in 2025. He completed his dissertation work as an NCI iCURE Scholar and NIH Graduate Partnership Program predoctoral fellow in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch (August 2023 - May 2025), co-mentored by Drs. Melissa Troester (UNC), Charles Matthews, Ph.D., and Kelly Evenson (NCI). He examined risk factors for physical activity and the association between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and the breast tumor microenvironment among participants in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study.

He previously served as a postbaccalaureate fellow in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch under Maria Teresa Landi, Ph.D., M.D. (2018–2020) and a summer intern in the Clinical Genetics Branch with Shahinaz Gadalla, M.D., Ph.D. (2018).

Dr. Kebede will work jointly with the Biostatistics Branch, under the mentorship of Hyokyoung (Grace) Hong, Ph.D., senior investigator, and the Center for Cancer Research, under the mentorship Dr. Ramya Ramaswami, research clinician. His research will focus on applying novel machine learning methods to characterize physical activity patterns and forecast MVPA in unique populations.