Cancer Prevention and Control Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
This NCI-funded T32 Cancer Prevention and Control Health Disparities Training Program offers a multi-disciplinary mentored environment to increase our understanding of cancer prevention and increasing quality of life for survivors. The program includes an important focus on cancer health disparities in underserved populations and in increasing the numbers of scientists from under-represented backgrounds.
Train to Become an Independent Investigator
This Cancer Prevention and Control Postdoctoral Fellowship Program provides preparation for an individual who wishes to pursue the route to becoming an independent scientist.
The training program includes development of clear scientific and academic goals, constructive scientific guidance from top-level mentors, and support for presentation and publication of results. Each fellow will have a mentoring team and mentoring plan in place to ensure future success in academic research. The trainee will work with established investigators and is expected to engage in a research project; develop research proposals; produce two to three publications per year; and work with a multidisciplinary team.
Applications are now being accepted for positions starting after July 1, 2023. Please see Eligibility and Application information below.
Individuals with a doctoral degree in public health, medicine, epidemiology, basic science, community psychology, sociology, or related health science degrees are encouraged to apply. Underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. This fellowship is restricted to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Required application materials include:
- Curriculum Vitae
- Personal statement and research concept (2 page max)
- Unofficial transcripts
- Three references (names and contact information)
To apply and for more information, please contact us here.
The University of Arizona Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Health Disparities Training Program offers a multi-disciplinary mentored environment. Potential mentors and mentoring committee members for T32 CPC fellows are listed below. Please note that primary mentors are not required to be on these lists, but at least one of the mentors listed below should be included in a fellow's mentoring committee.
Mentors and their areas of research are:
Allen, Alicia M., PhD; Family and Community Medicine
Area of Research: Women/maternal health and smoking cessation
Altbach, Maria I., PhD; Medical Imaging
Area of Research: Imaging techniques for cancer diagnosis
Badger, Terry A., PhD; Nursing
Area of Research: Quality of life for cancer survivors and caregivers in Latina populations
Barton, Jennifer K., PhD; Biomedical Engineering
Area of Research: Endoscopic techniques for early cancer detection
Bea, Jennifer W., PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Body composition and cancer disparities among women
Briehl, Margaret M., PhD; Pathology
Area of Research: Oxidative stress and cancer cells and Native American Health
Burgess, Jefferey L., MD; Public Health
Area of Research: Environmental-related exposures and cancer disparities in Native Americans, firefighters, and miners.
Carvajal, Scott C., PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Health behavior theory, social ecological models within minority populations, Latino/cultural behavioral science and health promotion science
Caulin, Carlos, PhD; Otolaryngology
Area of Research: Molecular mechanisms that promote head and neck cancer development
Chow, Hsiao-Hui (Sherry), PhD; Medicine
Area of Research: Clinical development of cancer chemopreventive agents; Disparities in Hispanic Women and biomarkers associated with breast cancer risk
Connick, Elizabeth, MD; Medicine
Area of Research: Smoking cessation and sleep quality in adults living with HIV
Curiel-Lewandrowski, Clara N., MD: Medicine
Area of Research: Photobiology, early skin cancer detection, and primary prevention of skin cancers.
Ellis, Nathan A., PhD; Cellular & Molecular Medicine
Area of Research: Molecular pathological etiology of early-onset colorectal cancer and its impact on African Americans
Farland, Leslie, PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Chronic disease risk, etiology and risk factors for infertility and gynecologic health conditions
Gachupin, Francine C., PhD; Family & Community Medicine
Area of Research: Behavioral risks, chronic disease, and Obesity in Native American/American Indian youth
Garcia, David O., PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Obesity-related health disparities among Hispanic men; preventing and treating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
Gordon, Judith S., PhD; Nursing
Area of Research: Technology-based and image driven approaches to tobacco cessation
Hamann, Heidi, PhD; Psychology
Area of Research: Psychological and behavioral aspects of cancer screening, diagnosis, and survivorship; stigma and cancer care delivery in vulnerable populations
Harris, Robin B., PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Skin cancer prevention, behavioral and lifestyle risk factors for cancer, environmental exposures, and cancer prevention among Native American and Hispanic populations
Liang, Rongguang, PhD; Optical Sciences
Area of Research; Imaging and prob techniques for cancer detection
Limesand, Kirsten H., PhD; Nutritional Sciences
Area of Research: Salivary gland function restoration in patients treated for head and neck cancer
Maier, Raina M., PhD; Environmental Sciences
Area of Research: Mining waste contamination and health
Thompson, Cynthia A., PhD; Public Health
Area of Research: Diet and behavioral interventions for the modification of cancer risk in Hispanic communities to reduce health disparities
Felina Cordova, DrPH, MPH
Title: Assistant Professor, Public Health, University of Arizona
Main Focus: American Indians, caregiving and cancer
Dr. Felina Cordova-Marks (member of the Hopi Tribe) completed her Doctorate in Public Health, MPH, and BS in Microbiology from the University of Arizona. Her dissertation was focused on caregiving (those providing care to a family member with cancer, chronic disease, disability and or the elderly) on the Hopi Reservation. Her current postdoctoral research is focused on Urban American Indian caregivers, looking specifically at caregiver duties, personal health, health behaviors (cancer screening), stress and resilience and their experience caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cordova-Marks has published in peer-reviewed journals, and textbooks on lab-based cardiovascular research, clinical cancer research, health disparities, cancer, and American Indian caregiving. She was the lead author of the 2019 Arizona Town Hall Report Chapter “Spotlight on American Indians in Arizona.” She is the recipient of the University of Arizona Centennial Award (for Doctoral student), 2019 National Native American 40 under 40 Award and was recently named a “Difference Maker” by the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Carlos O. Garrido, PhD
Title: CRTA Fellow in Applied Health Communication, National Cancer Institute
Main focus: Psychosocial factors influencing minority health disparities, cognitive barriers to cancer screening and other health promotive behaviors
Dr. Carlos Garrido completed his PhD in the fall of 2018 from The Pennsylvania State University—University Park, in the department of psychology with a strong emphasis on quantitative research methods. While studying social psychology at Penn State, he examined person-perception using a face-processing framework. Particularly, he examined how people extract various transient (e.g., emotional expressions) and static (e.g., phenotypic facial attributes) cues from the faces of others to form impressions and how stereotypes and prejudice (implicit and explicit types) affect the accuracy of such impressions. At the University of Arizona as a postdoctoral fellow, Carlos studies the influence of cognitive factors, such as cancer fatalism, on cancer screening intent and other health promotive behaviors. He also examines implicit stereotyping and prejudice in health care settings on the part of physicians against racial/ethnic minorities. Additionally, Dr. Garrido is slated to completed a Master in Public Health (MPH) degree in the fall of 2020. As part of his MPH internship, Carlos successfully designed and implemented an implicit bias/health equity workshop for employees of the largest health care provider in Tucson, Arizona. During his time at the University of Arizona, Carlos taught a 16-week advanced multivariate statistical course to a cohort of international scientific pharmacists. His long-term goal is to obtain a tenure-track professorship in the behavioral sciences.
Kristin Morrill, PhD
Title: Postdoctoral Fellow
Main Focus: Patient, provider, and system-level factors associated with delays in the initiation of cancer treatment among cancer survivors.
Dr. Kristin Morrill received her PhD in Nutritional Sciences in 2020 from the University of Arizona and her BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2014 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During her doctorate, Dr. Morrill was supported through a Nutritional Sciences National Needs Fellowship through the United States Department of Agriculture and served as an Impact Leader Fellow through the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences where she received early-career leadership training. Dr. Morrill’s graduate research harmonized her interest in health disparities research and nutrigenetics. The goal of her dissertation was to gather preliminary data to inform the development of a culturally-sensitive, genotype-informed intervention to treat and/or prevent the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in Mexican-origin women. As a part of her dissertation, Dr. Morrill received training in community-engaged research, conducting systematic reviews, gene-diet interaction analyses, and mixed-methods research. Dr. Morrill’s research interests pivoted when she became passionate about addressing disparities in timely access to care in light of the pandemic’s effects on the healthcare system. Currently, her research involves identifying salient patient, provider, and system-level factors associated with delays in the initiation of cancer treatment among cancer survivors. Additional research interests include applying implementation science approaches to improve healthcare access and quality and psychosocial outcomes in cancer survivors.
Echo Warner, PhD, MPH
Title: Assistant Professor, Nursing, University of Utah
Main Focus: Misinformation on social media among adolescents and young adults with cancer and their caregivers
Dr. Warner completed her Master’s in Public Health with a Global Health Graduate Certificate at the University of Utah in 2011. Finding her passion in cancer survivorship and caregiving among adolescents and young adults, in 2014 she began the University of Utah College of Nursing doctoral program where she earned her PhD studying young adult cancer caregiver's use of social media for social support. As a doctoral student, she was supported by two prestigious national fellowships, the National Cancer Institute's Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award (F31) and the Jonas Philanthropies Jonas Scholar Fellowship. As a graduate student, Dr. Warner identified novel changes in five types of social support (emotional, information, companionship, instrumental, and validation) that millennial cancer caregivers experience on social media in the first six months of caregiving. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Warner currently studies misinformation on social media among adolescents and young adults with cancer and their caregivers using novel information technology methods (e.g., natural language processing, eye-tracking). Her long-term goal is to develop equitable technology-based psychosocial interventions in AYA oncology that maximize the benefits (e.g., social support, information provision) and minimize the harms (e.g., misinformation) that patients and caregivers experience when they use social media for cancer information. In May 2020, she was one of 12 postdoctoral scholars to receive a Postdoctoral Research Development Grant and become a University of Arizona Sursum Fellow. As a first-generation college student from a frontier rural community, Dr. Warner is passionate about public health research that can directly contribute to improving wellbeing among the underserved. Her long-term career goal is to become an independent investigator at a research university with a focus on leveraging information technology and data analytics to improve psychosocial outcomes for AYA cancer patients and caregivers.
Celina I. Valencia, DrPH
Title: Assistant Professor, Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona
Main Focus: Social determinants of health and breast cancer mortality among rural Latinas
Celina I. Valencia completed her Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) at the University of Arizona in 2017. During her doctoral training, Dr. Valencia’s worked on a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded clinical trial on secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease among diabetic patients in Northern Mexico. Currently, Dr. Valencia’s research examines the linkages of social determinants of health and breast cancer mortality disparities among rural Latinas with early onset cancer. Dr. Valencia is a National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Health Disparities Research Scholar.