Current Fellows in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch

Ms. Barnao, postbaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, investigates the role of co-occurring clonal hematopoiesis on various phenotypes, such as hematologic parameters and malignancies. Her primary mentor is Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D., M.P.H., Earl Stadtman investigator.

Dr. Bergeron, postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, investigates social determinants of breast cancer disparities among African and African American populations. Her primary mentor is Jonine Figueroa, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Booker, postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, investigates molecular and social factors that contribute to breast cancer disparities under the co-mentorship of Jonine Figueroa, Ph.D. M.P.H., and Gretchen Gierach, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Feng, a postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, aims to conduct molecular epidemiologic analyses of breast cancer to examine molecular profiles in breast tumors, adjacent normal tissues, and tumor microenvironment among breast cancer patients in Asian and African populations and to associate the molecular changes with etiologic factors, breast tissue composition, and clinical outcomes. Her mentor is Rose Yang, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Harris, postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, investigates the molecular underpinnings of breast cancer risk factors and their influence on tumor development, microenvironment, and progression. Her primary mentor is Gretchen Gierach, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Hubbard, postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, focuses her research on understanding the role of germline and somatic mutations in the genetic etiology of pediatric cancers, under the mentorship of Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D., M.P.H., Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator.

Dr. Kelly, a postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, studies early somatic events in healthy cells and the contribution of germline and environmental factors to their clonal expansion and potential progression to cancer. Her primary mentor is Mitchell Machiela Sc.D., M.P.H.

Mr. Khandekar, an NIH Graduate Partnership Program predoctoral fellow in ITEB, is working on his dissertation research in bioinformatics and systems biology under the supervision of Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D., and Ludmil Alexandrov, Ph.D., at the University of California San Diego. Mr. Khandekar is interested in integrating large-scale omics datasets to ultimately elucidate the biological mechanisms that drive cancer formation and progression.

Dr. Lee, a postdoctoral fellow in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch, is focused on the Sherlock-Lung normal tissue study to understand the tumor evolution of lung cancer from never-smokers through multi-omic analysis and epidemiologic assessment under the mentorship of Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D.

Ms. Luhar, a prebaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, is investigating how stromal architecture and immune landscape composition contribute to breast cancer progression, under the mentorship of Mustapha Abubakar, M.D, Ph.D.

Ms. Miraftab, postbaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, creates new global contacts and reviews clinical/pathological data for the Sherlock-Lung Study. Her mentor is Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch, and Senior Advisor for Genomic Epidemiology in the Trans-Divisional Research Program.

Ms. Mitra, iCURE postbaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, works on molecular epidemiology studies in cancer survivorship, health disparities, and female cancers. Her mentors are Gretchen Gierach, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Jacqueline B. Vo, Ph.D., R.N., M.P.H.

Dr. Saha, research fellow in ITEB, is working under the mentorship of Dr. Gretchen Gierach, ITEB, Dr. Choonsik Lee, Radiation Epidemiology Branch, and Dr. Jonas Almeida, Data Science & Engineering Research Group, Trans-Divisional Research Program. In his research, Dr. Saha applies artificial intelligence and machine-learning methodologies to pathologic and radiologic medical imaging and epidemiologic data to investigate the etiology and prognosis of cancers. His main areas of focus are cancer grading/screening, risk prediction, survival analysis, pattern recognition, feature classification, computer-aided diagnosis, natural language processing, and cloud computing.

Dr. Young, postdoctoral fellow in ITEB, is investigating early-stage clonal chromosomal alterations in leukocytes and their potential relevance for hematological cancer risk, under the mentorship of Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D., M.P.H.

Mr. Wang, postbaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, is focusing on methodology in statistical genetics, with a concentration on rare-variant analysis, under the mentorship of Earl Stadtman Investigators Diptavo Dutta, Ph.D. and Haoyu Zhang, Ph.D.

Ms. White, postbaccalaureate fellow in ITEB, is researching breast cancer etiology in the Ghana Breast Health Study, under the mentorship of Jonine Figueroa, Ph.D., M.P.H., senior investigator.

Dr. Zhao, research fellow in ITEB, is working with Maria Teresa Landi, Ph.D., M.D., to investigate the etiology and progression of lung cancer in never smokers through a comprehensive genomic analysis and clinical and epidemiologic assessment. She is currently contributing to the development of computational pipelines for transcriptomic analysis. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Zhao worked to characterize the genomic and clinical heterogeneity of breast cancer subtypes using deep-sequencing and microarray.