Director’s Update: Welcoming New Leaders to the NCI

October 21, 2021, by Stephen J. Chanock, M.D.

In October, the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), welcomed genetic epidemiologist Dr. Katrina Goddard, as its new director. Dr. Goddard is an expert on public health genomics and the translation of genomic applications into clinical practice. Before joining the NCI, she served as Distinguished Investigator and Associate Director of Science Programs at Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW) in Portland, Oregon, where she was also the principal investigator of the KPNW site for the Connect for Cancer Prevention Study. 

Many DCEG investigators work closely with colleagues in DCCPS on collaborations ranging from the development of the Colorectal Cancer Risk Assessment Tool and ACT24 to the NCI Cohort Consortium, where a myriad of epidemiological investigations has yielded some of the most important findings of our generation for cancer prevention and control. We look forward to increasing opportunities for collaboration with DCCPS with Dr. Goddard at the helm.

The NCI has welcomed two other senior leaders with whom we work closely:  Dr. Philip Castle, Director of Division of Cancer Prevention has a joint appointment as a senior investigator in the Clinical Genetics Branch (CGB) where he investigates the etiology of cervical cancer. Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, Ph.D., joined the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT), as Associate Director; she devotes 20 percent of her time to research on the epidemiology of brain tumors as a senior investigator in the DCEG Trans-Divisional Research Program.