For the past decade, my research interests included understanding the role of nutrition and
cancer. This was a shift from my undergraduate degree focusing on engineering principles
applied to biological systems, accounting for their delicate properties and their interaction with
the environment. My master’s degree was laboratory research focusing on evaluating
mechanisms of the apoptotic and tumor-suppressor effects of 1α,25-dihyroxyvitamn D 3 and
1α,25-dihyroxyvitamn D 3 -3-bromoacetate, a vitamin D analog, on kidney cancer cells. I believe
this well-rounded educational background in mathematically and biologically-based areas
organically merged toward my recent investigations in cancer epidemiology. My Ph.D. research
focused on whether obese subjects with metabolic dysfunction compared to “metabolically
healthy” obese subjects differed in their risk for obesity-related cancers in Framingham
Offspring Study adults. My postdoctoral training applied and expand my epidemiological skills
in cancer epidemiological research; during that time, I also took a graduate course at in genetic
epidemiological research to apply to some proposed analyses in the study of prostate cancer. I
am currently an HJF employee on contract with USUHS to study occupational and
environmental exposures and the risk of thyroid and testicular cancer.

Cancer biology and epidemiology