Our Team
Parisa Tehranifar, DrPH
- Professor of Epidemiology at CUMC
Parisa Tehranifar, DrPH, is a cancer epidemiologist with additional training and expertise in sociomedical sciences and implementation science. Parisa strives to reduce the burden of cancer with an emphasis on populations facing structural barriers to health, including racial and ethnic marginalization, immigration and socioeconomic disadvantage. She prioritizes community perspectives and participatory approaches and aims to integrate them in advancing the science and practice of cancer control and beyond. Her current studies, funded by NCI and NIMHD, contribute to improving breast cancer risk stratification, improving the implementation of breast and cervical cancer screening, and intervention studies to reduce risk factors for multiple chronic diseases. She also collaborates on several life course studies of breast cancer, in which she examines the role of social factors in shaping adult cancer risk and risk factors, and leads multiple projects examining the determinants and distribution of mammographic breast density in sociodemographically diverse and predominantly immigrant populations and the integration of breast density on screening and clinical risk assessment.
Parisa Tehranifar directs the DrPH program in Epidemiology and co-directs the Chronic Disease Epidemiology Unit in the Epidemiology Department of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She is the Co-Director of the Community Outreach and Engagement Office of the Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and a member of its Population Science Program.
Erica Lee Argov, MPH
Erica Lee Argov, MPH is a pre-doctoral candidate in Epidemiology. Erica received her BA in Biology from Tufts University in 2008, and an MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in 2013. Before joining the CEASE Cancer Lab, Erica spent 5 years at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Vital Statistics, working largely on surveillance data and methods to assess and improve the quality of large datasets, including birth, death, and pregnancy outcome data. This work included managing large scale datasets, developing and implementing training materials for citywide hospitals, and managing data validation studies involving medical record abstraction. Her current work within the CEASE Cancer Lab involves using mammography screening cohort data to study the impact of policies around notifying women of their breast density, and data from nationwide breast cancer cohorts and national and regional cancer registry data. Erica’s research interests include maternal and child epidemiology, reproductive epidemiology, and women's health, and specifically the optimization of surveillance data and its application to inform and evaluate policy.
Anita G. Karr, MPH
Anita G. Karr, MPH, is a Research Project Coordinator at the CEASE Cancer Lab. Anita graduated from her MPH with a concentration in Epidemiology from Rutgers University in 2022. She currently is a Research Project Coordinator at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health focusing on breast cancer and other chronic diseases in racial and ethnic minoritized populations. Anita previously served as the Research Coordinator for the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) at Rutgers University and has over five years of mixed methods research experience with diverse communities in infectious and chronic diseases as well as sexual health. Her approach incorporates implementation science and analytical methods to address health disparities in historically marginalized communities.
Michelle Lui, MPH
Michelle Lui, MPH, is a second-year pre-doctoral candidate in the department of Epidemiology funded by the Advanced Training in Environmental Health and Data Science Training Program. Michelle received her BA in Public Health and Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015, and her MPH in Epidemiology with a Certificate in Applied Biostatistics and Public Health Data Science from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in 2021. Before beginning her doctoral training, she worked as a research associate at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she helped research smoking cessation among cancer patients. Currently she is working with Dr. Parisa Tehranifar to examine predictors and disparities in cancer screening, with a focus on breast cancer. She also works with Dr. Mary Beth Terry to study the gene-environment interactions for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and breast cancer. Her research interests focus on cancer epidemiology, particularly in precision prevention and reducing disparities along the cancer control continuum, life course epidemiology, environmental health, causal inference methods, big data, and risk prediction.
Won Hong, PhD
Won Hong, PhD is a postdoctoral research scientist with a PhD in Applied Analysis, Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University. Won’s primary research consists of improving cancer risk assessment by applying deep learning techniques to mammographic images and leveraging clinical factors. Applying advanced statistical model to build better representing latent space to help AI to capture features for better diagnosis and produce meaningful outcomes.
