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, DrPH
Erica Lee Argov, DrPH is a postdoctoral research scientist. Erica received her BA in Biology from Tufts University in 2008, and an MPH (2013), and DrPH (2025) in Epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Before joining the CEASE Cancer Lab, Erica worked 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 work using data from nationwide breast cancer cohorts and cancer registry data to study policy-relevant modifiable factors associated with early onset cancer risk. 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. She recently was awarded Center for Social Capital (SoCa) Pilot Funding to examine early onset cancer within persistently impoverished and rural neighborhoods.
Highlighted work:
- Breast Cancer Incident Trends in Older Women - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2835519
- Mammography Screening Patterns After Receiving Dense Breast Notification - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10552-024-01871-7
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 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.
Sunyeop (Sun) Lee, MS
Sunyeop Lee, MS, is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He received an MS in Epidemiology from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and BS in Health Science from Furman University. His prior research backgrounds span health equity, social epidemiology, causal inference, and medical AI. His current research focuses on screening, etiology, and population-level trends of cancer.
Michelle Jerry
Michelle Jerry is an MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where she is also pursuing a Certificate in Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes Research. She received her BS in Biology from Tufts University. Prior to her MPH, she worked for two years at Massachusetts General Hospital on a CDC-funded infection prevention project involving Virtual Reality training and Clinical Decision Support Systems. At Columbia, Michelle has worked with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness to assess how epidemiological models are selected, communicated, and utilized in public health emergency policy decision-making. She currently works with Dr. Parisa Tehranifar as a Project Coordinator.
Interns and Thesis Advisees
Racheal Rodriguez
Racheal Rodriguez is an MPH candidate in the Sociomedical Sciences department at the Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, where she is also completing a Certificate in the Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases. Racheal received her BHS in Health Science and her BA in Women's Studies, with a minor in Health Disparities in Society, from the University of Florida. Before joining the CEASE Cancer Lab, she worked as an Outreach Specialist at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, leading mobile clinic events that delivered free cancer screenings across four South Florida counties, and later supported a mobile lung cancer screening initiative in the Bronx and Staten Island as a graduate intern in the Community Outreach and Engagement Office at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. As a fellow in the CUNY School of Medicine's Cancer Epidemiology Education in Special Populations program, she served as first author and principal investigator on an ecological study of breast cancer mortality and screening coverage across Colombian departments, now being finalized for publication. Her current work examines breast cancer screening disparities among Hispanic women in New York City, with attention to language barriers and structural determinants of access. Her research interests include cancer screening disparities, community-engaged research, immigrant health, and the social determinants shaping care-seeking along the cancer control continuum.
Yao (Frances) Chen
Yao (Frances) Chen is an MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where she is pursuing a Certificate in Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes Research. She received her BSc from the University of Toronto, specializing in Psychology and majoring in Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Currently, she works with Dr. Parisa Tehranifar on research examining how communication about family health history relates to cancer information seeking and screening decision-making. She also supports the Community Outreach and Engagement Office by synthesizing literature and community-level cancer screening data for outreach materials and data visualizations.
Her research interests include cancer prevention, screening equity, and the translation of epidemiologic evidence into practical strategies for equitable cancer control.
Amy E. Hernandez
Amy E. Hernandez, an ambitious rising Junior in the high school, WHEELS, is dedicated to advancing public health and health equity. As an intern in the Yes in The Heights program under Columbia University, she has gained hands-on experience in Epidemiology, striving to find the answers to the complex history behind disease distribution within society. Driven by deep commitment to social justice in medicine, Amy aspires to alleviate the global burden of cancer. Particularly, she is heavily drawn to dismantling medical disparities that disproportionately affect certain populations, aiming to generally combine her interests in science and medicine along with impactful advocacy that will hopefully create a more equitable healthcare system.