Emily Pearce, Ph.D.

Emily Pearce joined the Clinical Genetics Branch (CGB) as a postbaccalaureate fellow in 2020. Ms. Pearce earned her M.P.H. from the Department of Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a doctoral degree in 2023 through the NIH Graduate Partnership Program. For her doctoral research, she studied the experience and management of medical uncertainty for patients with dyskeratosis congenita and their families, with a focus on the use of social media and virtual support programs. Dr. Pearce holds a graduate diploma in forced migration and refugee studies from the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and received her B.A. from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2003. In 2023, Dr. Pearce received the NIH Graduate Student Research Award for her work on social media to express and manage medical uncertainty. She was selected for the 2025 Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship Program.

Dr. Pearce is interested in intersections between health behavior and epigenetics, management of medical uncertainty in hereditary cancer and rare disease, and shared decision-making in healthcare. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow working under the mentorship of Sharon A. Savage, M.D., Branch Director and senior investigator, Sadie Hutson, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., staff clinician, and Dr. Paul Han.