Valerie Yoder, BS

Database Analyst

Utah Cancer Registry

Valerie Yoder has a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science with a focus on algorithms and data processing. She has worked in the Utah Cancer Registry Informatics department for five years processing, extracting, and analyzing data. She continuously explores process improvements and automation for registry operations and research and has successfully integrated several new and changing data sources. Previously, she worked for many years developing procedures to process and analyze pre-clinical medical imaging data with programming and scientific software.

Carol Sweeney, PhD

Director

Utah Cancer Registry

Carol Sweeney PhD is a cancer epidemiologist and Professor in the department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah.  She has over 10 years experience teaching epidemiology and conducting cancer research as a university faculty member.  She has been a director at Utah Cancer Registry from 2014 to the present.

Joseph Rogers, MS

Team Lead for Informatics, Data

Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Joseph D. Rogers received his B.S. and M.S. in Biology/Chemistry and Information Management respectively from Arizona State University (ASU).  He worked in Arizona for the Maricopa County Health Department as a project manager and data analyst before joining CDC in 1991 (first as a contractor and then as a federal employee in 1997).  During Mr. Rogers’ contracting years at CDC, he worked as a systems analyst on information technology projects, as a project manager, and as a data manager within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP).  When Mr. Rogers joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a federal employee, he initially worked for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as data manager and later joined the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC)/Cancer Surveillance Branch (CSB) in 1998 as the Team Lead for the Informatics, Data 

Bozena Morawski, PhD, MPH

Epidemiologist

Cancer Data Registry of Idaho

Bozena Morawski received a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota and an MPH from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Morawski is an epidemiologist at the Cancer Data Registry of Idaho. Her research interests include vulnerable and minority populations, infectious disease-associated cancers, and analysis of cancer data by geography. She is a member of the CiNA Editorial Work Group and coauthor of the CiNA Prevalence Volume. 

Diana Withrow, PhD

Epidemiologist, National Cancer Institue

Diana Withrow, Ph.D., joined the Radiation Epidemiology Branch (REB) as a postdoctoral fellow in May 2016 and promoted to Research Fellow in June 2018. Dr. Withrow earned her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health in 2016. Working with Dr. Loraine Marrett, her doctoral research comprised the first national-level analysis of cancer survival among First Nations and Métis adults in Canada. In 2010, Dr. Withrow earned an M.Sc. in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Since 2016, Dr. Withrow has worked as a post-doctoral and research fellow in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at teh National Cancer Institute. There, Dr. Withrow’s research interests include socio-demographic and economic disparities in survival and survivorship, the role of therapy on second cancer risk, and the optimal application of survival analysis techniques to these research areas. 

Dennis Deapen, DrPH, MPH

Epidemiologist, Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program - USCer

Dennis Deapen is Professor of Preventive Medicine at the USC School of Medicine. He has been Director of the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program (CSP) since 1988. The CSP functions in the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and is also a member of the California Cancer Registry and the SEER Program. He received a MPH from Loma Linda University and Doctor of Public Health from UCLA. He has been an epidemiologist since 1977 conducting research in etiology, prevention and survivorship of cancer. He has created or led large, long-term cohort studies of cancer risk.  Most recently he initiated the Virtual Pooled Registry which creates the capacity for linking cancer epidemiology cohort studies with all US cancer registries simultaneously. He has been author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed publications. He served as President of NAACCR and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Cancer Registries.

Gino Cioffi, MPH

Biostatistician, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine & CBTRUS

Gino  Cioffi is a biostatistician at Case Western University School of Medicine. He graduated from Kent State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology in 2016 and a Master of Public Health in Biostatistics in 2018. He has been involved in CBTRUS since 2018, where he contributes to the preparation of the CBTRUS analytic data files, data analysis, interpretation, manuscripts, reports and data requests.

Nirav Patil, MBBS, MPH

Senior Biostatistician; University Hospitals: Cleveland Medical Center & CBTRUS

Nirav Patil received Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, India in 2010, and a Master of Public Health in Biostatistics from University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas in 2013. Currently, I am working a biostatistician at University Hospitals, Cleveland. Beginning 2019, I am contributing to the preparation of the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS) analytic data files, data analysis, interpretation, reports and data requests in addition to preparation of presentations and publications for CBTRUS projects.

Whitney Zahnd, PhD

Research Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina

Dr. Whitney Zahnd is a research assistant professor with the Rural & Minority Health Research Center in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.

Jennifer Tsui, PhD

Associate Professor, University of Southern California

Jennifer Tsui is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine and a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is a health services researcher with a focus on disparities in cancer care delivery and cancer outcomes, particularly among racial/ethnic minority and low-income populations.  Dr. (SWAY) Tsui’s research utilizes cancer registry information, health care claims, population-based surveys, and geographic/spatial data to understand multilevel influences on patterns of care and cancer care quality for diverse populations. Her other area of research focuses on HPV vaccination and the implementation of evidence-based strategies to increase uptake in safety-net health care settings. 

Pushkar Inamdar, PhD

Data Scientist, University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Pushkar Inamdar is a Data Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and also a part of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His Ph.D. is in the field of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. His previous research experience is in the Geospatial Sciences, including an application of geostatistics in understanding temporal-spatial patterns. Since, joining UCSF, he has gained experience in characterizing neighborhood attributes for epidemiologic studies, including cohort and electronic health records studies as well as conducting geospatial analyses (e.g., spatial autocorrelation, proximity analysis, data wrangling, kriging, geocoding, remote sensing image analysis). He is applying more advanced concepts like deep learning to perform remote sensing data analysis for the neighborhood characterization, and application of machine learning on geospatial datasets to understand underlying patterns of health risk factors and outcomes.

Sandi Pruitt, PhD, MPH

Associate Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Sandi L. Pruitt, PhD MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Data Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Pruitt uses cancer registry data, electronic health record data, and neighborhood data to better understand geographic, socioeconomic, and racial/ethnic disparities in cancer behaviors and outcomes.

Scarlett Lin Gomez, PhD

Research Scientist & Director, Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry

Scarlett Lin Gomez, M.P.H. and Ph.D. in Epidemiology, is Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and a member of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the University of California, San Francisco. She is Director of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry, a participant in the NCI SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, End Results) program and the California Cancer Registry.  Her research focuses primarily on cancer health disparities and aims to understand the multilevel drivers of those disparities. 

Daniel Wiese

Doctoral Student, Temple University

DanielWiese is a doctoral student in the department of geography and urban studies atTemple University. Currently he is working on his dissertation undersupervision of Dr. Kevin Henry, and is expected to graduate in May 2021. Hisbackground is in remote sensing and GIS-based spatial modeling. The mainresearch interests include the understanding of geographic disparities incancer incidence and mortality in relation to socio-spatial mobility andneighborhood effects.

Ulrike Boehmer, PhD

Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health

Ulrike Boehmer, PhD is an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Boehmer received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Boston College. Dr. Boehmer’s research interests are in the areas of health disparities, LGBT health, and cancer prevention and control. She is particularly known for her work on LGBT cancer survivorship. Dr. Boehmer is recognized as a leader in LGBT health, especially in the context of cancer. She edited together with Dr. Elk the first book on Cancer and the LGBT population entitled, Cancer and the LGBT Community: Unique perspectives from Risk to Survivorship. She served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer in Young Women, serves on Scientific Advisory Committees for various NIH grants that focus on LGBT health, and is the Associate Editor of the Journal LGBT Health.

Salma Shariff-Maro, PhD, MPH

Social and Behavioral Scientist, University of California, San Francisco

Salma Shariff-Marco, PhD, MPH is a social and behavioral scientist with a research portfolio focused on understanding the role of social determinants of health in shaping and perpetuating health disparities. One main area of her research is on place and health, with studies evaluating how neighborhood characteristics (e.g., social, built, and physical environment attributes) and geographic variation may shape cancer-related health behaviors and outcomes across the cancer continuum. In addition, her research includes efforts to better characterize neighborhoods for population health studies (neighborhood archetypes, virtual audits with Google Street View).

Lena Winestone, MD, MS

Pediatric Hematologist-oncologist, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital

Dr.Lena Winestoneis a pediatric blood and bone marrow transplant specialist with a stronginterest in caring for children with high-risk or relapsed leukemia orlymphoma. She has a focus on using novel immunotherapies – treatments thatimprove the body's own ability to fight cancer – so that patients withtherapy-resistant leukemia can receive successful transplants. Winestone'sresearch explores racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in children'saccess to leukemia treatment, including bone marrow transplant, and in theiroutcomes. Her top priority is ensuring that all children can get the bestpossible treatment as early as possible. Afterearning a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, Winestoneearned her medical degree at Stanford University School of Medicine. She thencompleted a residency in pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children's HospitalStanford and a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at theChildren's Hospital of Philadelphia. She also has a master's degree in healthpolicy research from the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School ofMedicine.

Ying Wang, MSc

Biostatistician, Cancer Care Ontario | Ontario Health

Ying Wang holds a Master degree in Statistics from McMaster University and has more than 10 years of experience in statistical analysis and modeling within the health care field. Currently, she works as a Biostatistician /Senior Research Associate at Cancer Care Ontario | Ontario Health. Her expertise includes regression modeling, survival analyses, projections, longitudinal analysis and multi-level modeling. Ying’s work with her colleagues has been published in different journals such as Canadian Journal of Public Health and American Journal of Epidemiology.

Bian Liu, PhD

Environmental Health and Cancer Epidemiologist, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Bian Liu is an environmental health and cancer epidemiologist.  She studies how the interplay between the places where people live throughout their lives and factors at the personal, institutional, and neighborhood level impacts their health, behavior, and healthcare utilization.  She applies statistical approaches to large databases to uncover geospatial and disparity patterns in exposures and health outcomes. She investigates the health effects of environmental and occupational exposures under normal conditions, as well as in natural/man-made disaster situations. 

Myles Cockburn, PHd

Professor, University of Southern California

Dr. Cockburn is a coffee snob, a keen cyclist and runner, and probably drinks too much scotch.  In his spare time, he is the Scientific Director of the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program, runs the Cancer Control Program of the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, and is a Professor of Preventive Medicine and Spatial Sciences at USC.  He also runs a PhD program in epidemiology if you’re interested in a career in academia, and like working 70 hours a week on a barista’s salary.  And yes, he was at the University of Colorado for a few years, but they ran out of scotch, so he’s back at USC.

Katherine Wojcick, PhD

Epidemiologist, NCI T32 postdoctoral scholar, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Katherine Wojcik is an epidemiologist and NCI T32 postdoctoral scholar, who is interested in cancer affecting children and young people, primarily the understudied group of adolescents and young adults (AYAs), defined as persons diagnosed with cancer at 15-39 years of age. I have expertise in conducting population-based, cancer-registry studies of AYA cancers, including melanoma, and have been working in public health research for over 10 years. 

Laura Thompson, MA

Program Analyst, University of Southern California, Department of Preventative Medicine

Laura Thompson is a Programmer Analyst at the University of Southern California, Department of Preventive Medicine. She has an MA in Geography and primarily supports the department with geographic data analysis aimed at understanding spatial uncertainty in cancer control. Her ongoing work involves the application of novel spatial analysis methods in an exploration of the effects of residential ambient pesticide exposure on cancer incidence. Laura also supports research related to understanding spatial differences in cancer diagnosis, burden and treatment outcomes.

Bozena Morawski, PhD, MPH

Epidemiologist

Cancer Data Registry of Idaho

Bozena Morawski received a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota and an MPH from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Morawski is an epidemiologist at the Cancer Data Registry of Idaho. Her research interests include vulnerable and minority populations, infectious disease-associated cancers, and analysis of cancer data by geography. She is a member of the CiNA Editorial Work Group and coauthor of the CiNA Prevalence Volume. 

Dennis Deapen, DrPH, MPH

Epidemiologist, Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program - USCer

Dennis Deapen is Professor of Preventive Medicine at the USC School of Medicine. He has been Director of the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program (CSP) since 1988. The CSP functions in the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and is also a member of the California Cancer Registry and the SEER Program. He received a MPH from Loma Linda University and Doctor of Public Health from UCLA. He has been an epidemiologist since 1977 conducting research in etiology, prevention and survivorship of cancer. He has created or led large, long-term cohort studies of cancer risk.  Most recently he initiated the Virtual Pooled Registry which creates the capacity for linking cancer epidemiology cohort studies with all US cancer registries simultaneously. He has been author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed publications. He served as President of NAACCR and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Cancer Registries.

Amanda Kahl, MPH

Research Specialist, State Health Registry of Iowa

Amanda Kahl is an epidemiologist and researcher at the Iowa Cancer Registry. who has conducted studies of data quality and completeness of cancer registry data, assessed the quality of data linkages with registry data, and examined the associations between viral infections and cancer in Iowa.

Jaime Hernandez, J.D.; M.Be.

Management and Program Analyst, Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP)

Jaime (Hi May) Hernandez is an attorney and bioethicist at the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Before joining OHRP, Mr. Hernandez was a Senior Research Investigator at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy.  Prior to that, he was a Litigation Associate at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, L.L.P.  He also served as an Administrator for the social and behavioral science IRB at the University of Pennsylvania, Office of Regulatory Affairs.  Mr. Hernandez obtained his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and his Masters in Bioethics (M.Be.) at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine.  

Misti Anderson, MS, MA

Senior Advisor, Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP)

Misti Anderson serves as a Senior Advisor for Public Health Education in the Division of Education and Development of the HHS Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). Prior to joining OHRP, Ms. Anderson was a Senior Policy and Research Analyst at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, where she served as staff lead for the Bioethics Commission’s educational materials and for both volumes of the Bioethics Commission’s Gray Matters report on neuroscience and ethics. She holds an M.S. in Biomedical Science Policy and Advocacy from Georgetown University, an M.A. in Science Education from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in Microbiology from Clemson University.

Castine Clerkin, MS, CTR

VPR Program Manager, NAACCR

Castine is the Program Manager for NAACCR’s Virtual Pooled Registry project. In this role she oversees all aspects of the project, from pilot linkages to workgroup calls to system development and testing.  Prior to joining NAACCR, Castine was a Program Consultant with CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries for over 7 years.  Castine began her career in cancer surveillance in 2001, working as the epidemiologist and data manager for the Maine Cancer Registry.

Steve Friedman, MHA

Senior Advisor, Surveillance Research Program, NCI/DCCPS

SteveFriedman, MHA, joined the Surveillance Research Program as a Senior Advisor forOperations in July of 2015. He works on several major initiatives, includingSEER, Natural Language Processing (NLP), the Virtual Bio-Repository (VTR) andthe Virtual Pooled Registry (VPR). In January 2018 he was named the LeadContracting Officer Representative (COR) for the SEER Program. Mr. Friedmanserved as a founding Director for the Association for the Accreditation ofHuman Research Protection Programs and is a past President of the Board for theUlmanCancer Fund for Young Adults. He is the recipient of several NIH Merit Awardsand a NIH Director’s Award. Mr. Friedman received his Master of Health ServicesAdministration from the George Washington University and is currently AdjunctFaculty with the MPH@GWU program.

Fabian Depry

Senior Systems Analyst; Information Management Services

Fabian Depry, focuses on the design and implementation of biomedical computer systems.  He has extensive experience and expertise in systems design and object-oriented programming, focusing mainly on Java Desktop and Web applications. Mr. Depry is a lead developer and designer on the SEER*DMS project.  He also designed and developed the SEER Abstracting tool, the SEER*Edits Submission tool and the SEER Data Viewer tool.  Mr Depry holds a BS in Computer Science from Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium and a MS in Computer Science from Hood College, Frederick.  He has been with IMS since 2003.

Valerie Yoder, BS

Database Analyst

Utah Cancer Registry

Valerie Yoder has a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science with a focus on algorithms and data processing. She has worked in the Utah Cancer Registry Informatics department for five years processing, extracting, and analyzing data. She continuously explores process improvements and automation for registry operations and research and has successfully integrated several new and changing data sources. Previously, she worked for many years developing procedures to process and analyze pre-clinical medical imaging data with programming and scientific software.

Isaac Hands

Lead Software Architect, Kentucky Cancer Registry

Isaac Hands leads the software development efforts of the Kentucky Cancer Registry andassist in managing informatics operations, providing technical leadership, anddesigning data infrastructure at the Kentucky Cancer Registry and the UK MarkeyCancer Center Research Informatics Core. Mr. Hands oversees the software development,database and network operations, and customer support of the state-wide cancerpatient data management system in use at all hospital facilities in KY and thestatewide SEER/NPCR central cancer registry software.

Michelle Esterly

Employed by Katmai Government Services

Michelle Esterly received her B.S. in Health Information Administration from Gwynedd Mercy University and achieved certification as a Registered Health Information Administrator in 1997. She worked for the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry in various positions before joining the CDC Registry Plus Team as a contractor in 2015. Ms. Esterly has six years of experience in hospital cancer registries and received her CTR in 1996. Ms. Esterly is currently employed by Katmai Government Services and is a contractor for the National Program of Cancer Registries Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Rosamaria Frutos

Cancer Project Coordinator

Rosa Frutos is the Cancer Project Coordinator at Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and helps coordinate the Northwest Tribal Comprehensive Cancer Program funded by CDC’s Comprehensive Cancer Control Grant. She graduated from the University of Washington with a Masters in Social Work and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

Sujata Joshi

Project Director

Sujata Joshi is the Project Director of NPAIHB’s Improving Data and Enhancing Access-Northwest project, which works to expand Northwest Tribes’ access to accurate and timely health data. Ms. Joshi obtained her MSPH in Epidemiology from the Rollins School of Public Health, and has worked in tribal epidemiology for 9 years. 

Melissa Jim

Epidemiologist

Melissa A. Jim, MPH (Diné) is an Epidemiologist with the Cancer Surveillance Branch in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that working in collaboration with the Indian Health Service Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention in Albuquerque, NM. She has been with the Cancer Surveillance Branch for over 15 years. Prior to working at CDC she worked at the New Mexico Tumor Registry.

Jonathan Simkin

Scientific Director

Jonathan Simkin is the Scientific Director at the British Columbia Cancer Registry, Vancouver, Canada. He completed a Master’s of Public Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and is currently a PhD Candidate at the School of Population and Public Health, UBC, Canada. His research focuses on applications of geospatial methods to cancer surveillance and population oncology research. Jonathan has worked at cancer registries since 2015, previously working with the Yukon Cancer Registry as a Cancer Epidemiologist.