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

Former Director, 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

Informatics, 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 four years. Previously, she worked in pre-clinical medical imaging developing image analysis processes

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.

Carrie Bateman, BS

Utah Cancer Registry

Carrie Bateman has a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems from the University of Utah and has worked at Utah Cancer Registry since 2010.  She began as a part time research assistant, became informatics specialist in 2014, and transitioned to registry manager in March 2019.

Stephanie Hill, MPH, CTR

NAACCR

Stephanie came to NAACCR from the New Jersey State Cancer Registry, where, as Program Manager, she experienced first-hand the many recruitment and retention challenges faced in both the health department and university settings. She is a CTR with nearly 20 years of experience in central and hospital cancer registries and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

Lauren Maniscalco

MPH

Lauren Maniscalco earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the LSUHSC School of Public Health in New Orleans, LA in 2010. Following the completion of her master's degree, she began working as the Special Studies Coordinator for the Louisiana Tumor Registry (LTR) and became the Registry Liaison in 2016. Ms. Maniscalco manages data dissemination, co-authors the LTR’s annual monographs and reports, and coordinates the data visualization project.

Cathy Bledsoe

MPH

Cathy Bledsoe has a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the Colorado School of Public Health. She has worked with cancer registries since 2011, first with the Colorado Central Cancer Registry and later as a contractor with the Cancer Surveillance Branch at CDC. In 2017, she co-founded One Health Insights, a consulting company focused on helping public health and environmental organizations use their data effectively. 

Susan Gershman

Director

Director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry

Reda Wilson

Epidemiologist

Reda Wilson, MPH, CTR is an Epidemiologist with CDC’s Cancer Surveillance Branch.  Ms. Wilson has more than 30 years’ experience in cancer surveillance; in an oncology practice and pathology laboratory, as a hospital cancer registrar, Director of the Alabama Statewide Cancer Registry, and Program Consultant with CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries before moving to her current epidemiology position.  She is the author or co-author of several presentations and publications.

Shailendra Bhavsar

Technical Specialist

Mr. Bhavsar is currently a technical specialist at ICF, with more than 18 years of experience in the IT industry, of which over 10 years have been dedicated to cancer surveillance community. He is a development manager and security steward for the CDC/NPCR-CSS project awarded to ICF.  His responsibilities include supporting the project operations from systems and application perspective, involving in the system and software design and full life cycle system implementation, including NPCR-CSS document server, monitoring system, various utility programs, and on-line query applications. He is a certified Microsoft application developer with extensive experience in VB and .Net technologies and many data reporting development tools.  As a security steward, he is also well versed in security issues and familiar with federal IT security standards. Mr. Bhavsar holds a B. Ed degree, two BS degrees in physics and mathematics respectively, all from Gujarat University in India.