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Our Academy Fellows are scientific or policy professionals at various stages of their career with a research interest in the field of cancer prevention and survival through food, nutrition, physical activity or body fatness
Read their profiles below to find out more about their experience of the Fellowship, as well as their career history.
Academy Fellows are invited to send career updates – including achievements, conferences attended, or any other activities – to academy@wcrf.org or via the Fellows Alumni Linkedin group.
Stella Breininger
PhD student Newcastle University, UK
Stella attended the February 2019 masterclass on nutrition and cancer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She said:
“I am extremely grateful for the WCRF Fellowship award, which provided me with the opportunity to join the masterclass and meet interdisciplinary cancer researchers and partners from all over the world. This course helped me broaden my in-depth knowledge of various cancer types, especially their risk factors and prevention strategies. It is an excellent platform for networking and collaboration with interdisciplinary cancer researchers and partners both nationally and internationally.”
After graduating with a BSc in Food and Human Nutrition from Newcastle University, Stella received a scholarship funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) to undertake research training within the MRC-funded Centre for Ageing and Vitality, Newcastle University, directed by Prof Sir Doug Turnbull. This scholarship enabled her to undertake an MRes in Medical Research and carry out research towards her PhD (completion expected in September 2019) on the Effect of Adiposity on Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer Risk.
As part of her PhD, Stella is investigating the effects of obesity, weight loss and ageing on biomarkers of colorectal cancer risk in ageing human colonocytes. She is also interested in how additional lifestyle factors, such as physical activity and smoking, modulate these biomarkers.
Stella is using colorectal mucosal biopsies and data from the longitudinal Biomarkers Of Risk In Colorectal Cancer (BORICC) follow-up study, known as BFU, to investigate the effects of ageing and obesity on mitochondrial biomarkers and microRNA expression. She is optimistic that her research will provide an insight into the mechanisms through which adverse lifestyle factors and ageing increase cancer risk in the human colon.
Selected publication
Prudence Carr
Postdoctoral Researcher
German Cancer Research Center, Germany
Prudence attended the February 2019 masterclass on nutrition and cancer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She said:
“The WCRF Fellowship has allowed me to meet and network with researchers from around the world, who also have an interest in cancer prevention. I feel very motivated and inspired with new ideas and knowledge from the masterclass that I can apply to my research in the area of diet, lifestyle and cancer prevention.”
Dr Carr is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Ageing Research at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research interest lies primarily in nutrition and health, with a strong focus on nutritional epidemiology of cancer. Her research explores the impact of diet and lifestyle factors on cancer prevention, particularly colorectal cancer, using data from the DACHS study (Colorectal cancer: chances for prevention through screening), one of the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological studies on colorectal cancer worldwide.
In 2017, she was awarded her PhD in epidemiology from Heidelberg University. In her dissertation, Dr Carr focused on meat consumption and its effects on risk and prognosis of colorectal neoplasms. Based on this work, her team published a well-received systematic review and meta-analysis summarising the evidence on subtypes of meat (beef, pork, veal, poultry) to elaborate which types of meat specifically increase the risk of colorectal cancer. This work contributed to the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s evaluation from 2015, which classified processed meat as carcinogenic to humans and red meat as probably carcinogenic to humans.
Prior to her PhD, she completed a BSc at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2008, and an MSc of Dietetics at Deakin University, Australia, in 2012. She is also an Australian Accredited Practicing Dietitian.
Selected publications
> Meat subtypes and their association with colorectal cancer: Systematic review and meta-analysis
Inarie Jacobs
Registered Dietitian
Bambisana Hospital, South Africa
Inarie attended the February 2019 masterclass on nutrition and cancer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She said:
“Great things in cancer prevention cannot be achieved alone. Coming together at this masterclass is a beginning and working together will contribute to successful strategies for cancer prevention across the globe.”
After obtaining a BSc in dietetics in 2016, Inarie continued her education with an MSc in dietetics at the North-West University in South Africa from 2017–18. Her MSc investigated diet, physical activity and body size in relation to breast cancer risk in black South African women. This study was part of the South African Breast Cancer (SABC) study conducted at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer. She presented her work at the National Nutritional Congress in South Africa in September 2018.
She is working as a Dietitian at Bambisana Hospital in South Africa for her community service year. This is a compulsory year for all medical and allied health graduates in South Africa. She would like to continue in the field of cancer and nutrition after her community service year, particularly in South Africa where research on cancer and nutrition is lacking.
Selected publications
> On the WCRF blog: Nutrition and breast cancer in South Africa
> Dietary intake and breast cancer risk in black South African women: The SABC study
Annaleen Koole
PhD student
Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Annaleen Koole is a PhD student at the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. She is involved in the Energy for Life after ColoRectal cancer (EnCoRe) study, an observational study that focuses on longitudinal associations between lifestyle determinants and quality of life outcomes in colorectal cancer survivors. Annaleen completed her MSc in Global Health in 2014 and then started working as a research dietitian on the EnCoRe study, in which she was involved in data collection and processing. Two years later, in 2016, she started her PhD within the EnCoRe study.
Annaleen’s PhD project is focused on nutritional factors such as dietary supplement use, and the intake of specific vitamins and their association with fatigue and depression in colorectal cancer survivors.
Selected publications
> On the blog: Vitamin D and fatigue in colorectal cancer survivors
Melissa Orenduff
PhD student
University of North Carolina, US
Melissa attended the February 2019 masterclass on nutrition and cancer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She said:
“Being a WCRF Fellow is a unique and rare opportunity to be immersed among the most highly respected researchers in area of nutrition and cancer. For me, this is a chance to take in all that I can and learn as much as possible.”
Melissa is a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research is focused on the association of obesity and cancer and the impact of dietary energy balance modulation, particularly caloric restriction and exercise, on prevention, progression and management of the disease.
In 2017, she was awarded a predoctoral fellowship for the University of North Carolina Lineberger’s Cancer Control and Education Program. Her PhD thesis is on the tumour-suppressive role of insulin-like growth factor binding protein 7 (IGFBP7) in pancreatic cancer. IGFBP7 is modulated by dietary energy balance (caloric restriction, obesity and exercise) and may be a potential intervention target for preventing pancreatic cancer. An exciting component of this research is that the human findings will be replicated in calorically restricted murine and nonhuman primate models.
Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science and Public Health in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina, awarded in 2004. During her undergraduate degree, she began working at Duke University Medical Center as a research co-ordinator on several clinical research projects investigating the impact of caloric restriction and protein supplementation in older adults. Since 2012, she is Managing Editor for the Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics.
Selected publications
Georgios Saltaouras
Doctoral Researcher
Oxford Brookes University, UK
Georgios attended the February 2019 masterclass on nutrition and cancer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He said:
“This was an intensive two-day masterclass, in which I learned about the latest research in nutrition and cancer from Masters and Fellows. I would like to thank WCRF for providing me with the Fellowship to attend this masterclass. It was a fantastic experience to present my work and it is a great honour to be a WCRF Academy Fellow.”
Georgios is a Doctoral Researcher at Oxford Brookes University funded by a Nigel Groome Scholarship. His research uses a mixed-methods design to explore dietary habits, nutritional awareness and experiences of nutrition support in patients diagnosed with a pelvic cancer (rectal, bladder, male and female reproductive organs). Findings from this project will feed into an ongoing initiative, the National Institute of Health Research Nutrition and Cancer Infrastructure Collaboration, which aims to bring nutrition and cancer research together to improve cancer care in the UK. Georgios has presented his work at two conferences: the Nutrition Society winter conference in 2017 and British Psycho-Oncology Society annual conference in 2018.
Georgios obtained an MSc in Nutrition and Metabolic Health from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2013 and a BSc in Dietetics and Nutritional Sciences from Harokopio University, Greece, in 2010. Between his MSc and PhD studies, Georgios worked as a postgraduate research assistant at the Oxford Brookes Centre for Nutrition and Health. This involved conducting studies investigating the role of different foods on metabolic markers, including glycaemic and insulinaemic response.
Georgios is an Associate Registered Nutritionist and has a strong research background in nutrition and dietetics. He has worked on nutrition projects related to gut health, bone health, glucose metabolism and cancer survivorship. Georgios’s interests focus on nutrition, lifestyle, cancer, public health and research methods.
Selected publication
Dr Kathryn Beck
Senior Lecturer in Human Nutrition and Dietetics
Massey University, New Zealand
Dr Beck is a Senior Lecturer in human nutrition and dietetics, and Associate Team Leader in human nutrition at Massey University in New Zealand. She is a Registered Dietician with 15 years of experience in clinical, community, health promotion and academic settings.
Dr Beck is principal investigator on several studies including an investigation of dietary patterns, socio-demographic factors and anthropometric characteristics using data from the New Zealand adult nutrition survey. She has supervised 10 MSc students to completion and supervises 13 PhD and MSc students. Dr Beck teaches in the areas of nutrition assessment, sports nutrition, communications in dietetic practice, and statistical analysis. Her research interests include the development and validation of tools to assess dietary intake, dietary patterns and associations with chronic disease, and determinants of and solutions to iron deficiency in a range of populations.
Dr Beck received a Bachelor of Physical Education and a BSc (Human Nutrition) from the University of Otago in 1998 and 1999 respectively. She completed her MSc in Human Nutrition at Massey University in 2008 using stable isotopes to investigate iron absorption in young women. Her PhD investigated dietary causes, consequences and solutions to iron deficiency in young women and was completed in 2013.
Dr Marco Matejcic
Postdoctoral Fellow
International Agency of Research on Cancer (IARC)
Dr Matejcic obtained a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cape Town in collaboration with the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. He carried out genetic association studies in oesophageal cancer using data from the multi-ethnic population of South Africa. He also contributed to sequencing analyses to identify potential mutations associated with colorectal carcinoma in the Kazakhstan population.
In 2014, he was awarded with a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Nutritional Epidemiology Group at IARC. Using data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, he investigated the association between biomarkers of B vitamins, genetic polymorphisms and the risk of breast cancer. He also collaborated with the Epigenetics Group at IARC to investigate the association between biomarkers of folate and DNA methylation patterns in the breast cancer EPIC study. He is investigating potential interactions between biomarkers of fatty acids and SCD-1 gene polymorphisms on the risk of pancreatic cancer.
Selected publications
> Gene-environment interactions in esophageal cancer
> Progression of esophageal dysplasia to cancer
Dr Harinakshi Sanikini
French National Institute of Health
Dr Sanikini completed her PhD at French National Institute of Health Centre for Research Epidemiology and Population Health. Her research interest is chronic disease epidemiology, with a particular focus on diet, nutritional, and lifestyle and hormonal factors.
Her PhD focused on coffee consumption, body mass index in relation to lung cancer. She presented her research at the European Lung Cancer Conference in Geneva in April 2015 and the European Congress of Epidemiology in Maastricht in 2015. She received a bachelor’s degree in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics from Osmania University in India in 2009, and a master’s in Nutrition and Health from Wageningen University in the Netherlands) in 2013. She received a doctoral degree from University of Paris-Scaly, France, in 2016.
Selected publications
> Coffee consumption and risk of lung cancer: the ICARE study
Dr Lin Yang
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Dr Yang is Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Medical University of Vienna since 2016. She received her PhD in Epidemiology with a focus on physical activity and public health, and natural experiments in active transport research, from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2012. Between 2013 and 2015, she undertook postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine (St Louis, US) in the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer center, investigating the role of physical activity and obesity in cancer survivorship.
She has a multidisciplinary background including kinesiology, statistics and epidemiology. Her primary research interests relate to interventions targeting obesity and physical activity for cancer prevention and survivorship care.
Her research includes identifying the impact of physical activity on bone health in overweight/obese postmenopausal breast cancer survivors using bone turnover markers and bone mineral density scores; refining methods in patient-reported measure for prostate cancer survivors post-radical prostatectomy; and developing Tai Chi intervention trials adapted to cancer survivors at the Vienna General Hospital.
Selected publications
> Interventions to promote cycling: systematic review
> An active lifestyle for cancer prevention
> The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the US, 2007–12
Dr José Breedveld-Peters
Postdoctoral Researcher and Dietician
Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Dr Breedveld-Peters is a Postdoctoral Fellow on a nutritional epidemiology project at Maastricht University. The project is an extension of the Energy for Life after ColoRectal cancer (EnCoRe) study, a prospective cohort study of colorectal cancer survivors to investigate relationships between lifestyle factors, in particular diet and physical activity, and health-related quality of life in this population. Dr Breedveld-Peters is working on extending the EnCoRe study to other regional hospitals in Limburg, as well as analysing data and writing papers on self-reported dietary habits, supplement intake, medical consumption and societal participation, and their relation to health-related quality of life. Her research interests focus on the field of nutrition as well as health and in the implementation of change in daily healthcare practice.
She previously worked as a Research Dietician at Maastricht University (2000–07) and has 16 years of experience as a Dietician in the paramedical field.
Dr Breedveld-Peters obtained her PhD in 2012 from Maastricht University, where she worked on a process evaluation of a nutritional intervention for hip facture patients, within a multicentre randomised controlled trial.
Selected publications
Dr Hannah Lewis
Research Associate
University of Cambridge, UK
Dr Lewis is a Research Associate at the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, working on projects investigating gastrointestinal hormone secretion. Her research interests lie primarily in nutrition and health, with a strong focus on epidemiological and intervention studies.
She has presented her doctoral research at the European Congress on Obesity in 2012 and 2013; the Annual Meeting for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviour, 2013; and the International Congress on Obesity, 2014. She was invited to present at the Rank Prize Funds Symposium of Nutrition, Obesity and Diabetes, 2011, and the symposium of Gut Hormones and Obesity, 2014.
Dr Lewis received a BSc (Hons) in Biology from the University of Bath, UK, in 2006, and an MSc in Nutrition from King’s College London, UK, in 2007. She was awarded a Medical Research Council studentship, and carried out her doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge, receiving her PhD in 2013. Her thesis was on food portion size and implications for appetite control and obesity, taking a multidisciplinary approach, with a public health focus and a strong mechanistic basis.
Selected publications
> Large portion sizes increase bite size and eating rate in overweight women
> How much should I eat? A comparison of suggested portion sizes in the UK
Dr Kris Yuet Wan Lok
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Kris holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Her research interests focus primarily on maternal and child health, as well as infant feeding. Her ongoing projects include investigating the impact of cessation of complimentary infant formula in public hospitals on the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding. Dr Lok was recently awarded funding to study the short and long term outcomes of breast milk and formula feeding among preterm infants.
She previously held a Research Associate position at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2007–13) where she worked on various studies investigating the role of nutrition in relation to chronic diseases. Dr Lok is also a registered dietician in the UK, and worked as a research dietician at the University of Southampton, UK (2006–07).
Selected publications
> Prostate cancer and vegetable consumption
Dr Nonsikelelo Mathe
Research Associate (Gestational Diabetes Mellitus)
University of Alberta, Canada
Dr Mathe is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alliance for Canadian Health Outcomes Research in Diabetes, University of Alberta. Her research is on chronic disease epidemiology, with a particular focus on diabetes. In addition, she is a collaborator on the World Health Organization Africa’s Study on Physical Activity and Dietary Assessment Methods.
Previously, she completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Nutritional Epidemiology at the Department of Medicine, University of Alberta.
Her main research interest is on the role of diet as a mediator between diabetes and progression of diabetes, including the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, particularly liver cancer. Additionally, she is interested in the growing trends and prevalence of chronic disease in African countries.
Dr Mathe’s key achievements so far include receiving an Overseas Research Student award which partially funded her PhD; achieving second prize (senior category) for an oral presentation at the Alberta Diabetes Institute Research day, and second prize for post-doctoral fellow presentations at the Department of Medicine annual research day.
Dr Mathe completed her PhD, entitled Adiposity and cardiovascular disease risk factors: A comparison between ethnicities, at Brunel University in the UK in 2011. Additionally she holds a BSc (Hons) in Exercise and Health Sciences from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK.
Selected publications
> Prompted Awareness and Use of Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide: A Population-based Study
Dr Alexia Murphy
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Queensland, Australia
Dr Murphy is a Research Fellow and Theme Leader at the Queensland Children’s Nutrition Research Centre, and Scientist-in-Charge of the Body Composition Laboratory at the University of Queensland. Dr Murphy was awarded a Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute Early Career Fellowship in 2013. The Fellowship focuses on childhood cancer survivors, developing a paediatric oncology nutrition screening tool, evaluating nutrition interventions in children with cancer and examining the link between nutritional status and clinical outcomes in childhood cancer.
She co-founded the International Paediatric Oncology Nutrition Group in 2010 with over 100 members from 29 countries; this interest group is for health professionals and researchers involved in the nutrition-related care and research of children with cancer. Dr Murphy was appointed Co-Chair of this group in 2013 and has a significant leadership role in the activities, including collaborative research projects, developing education resources and organising a monthly education and discussion meeting to improve the uptake of evidence based research in managing nutrition care in children with cancer.
Dr Murphy received her PhD in Pediatric Nutrition at The University of Queensland in 2010. She has written two invited book chapters, published 21 original research papers, authored 37 conference abstracts and presented her research at numerous international conferences.
Selected publications
> Body composition of children with cancer during treatment and in survivorship
> Evaluation of the nutrition screening tool for childhood cancer (SCAN)
Dr Jillian Wate
Research Fellow
Pacific Research Centre for Prevention of Obesity and Non-communicable Diseases, Fiji
Dr Wate is a Research Fellow with the Pacific Research Centre for Prevention of Obesity and Non-communicable Diseases (C-POND), Fiji. In her role, she leads efforts to develop Pacific Island-relevant monitoring tools for assessing the food environment as part of a regional collaboration to undertake more effective monitoring of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
She received her PhD in 2014, which focused on adolescent diets in Fiji and the drivers of their behaviours. This study employed a mixed method on dietary patterns of adolescents and relationship with weight status (BMI) cross-sectionally and predictors of dietary change over time. Additionally, her PhD has identified sociocultural influences on the dietary patterns of adolescents. The results of her doctoral research resulted in recommendations for effective social marketing to motivate adolescents to change to healthy dietary patterns. She plans to expand her research skills in the area of nutritional epidemiology to address the substantial burdens of obesity and NCDs in the Pacific region.
She completed a BSc in Food Science and Human Nutrition and MSc in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii. She has also worked as a Public Health Nutritionist in the Solomon Islands for over 10 years.
Selected publication
> Adolescent dietary patterns in Fiji and their relationships with standardized body mass index
Dr Sandra Crispim
Adjunct Professor, Nutrition Department
Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
Dr Crispim is a Registered Nutritionist working as an Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Paraná. She is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of São Paulo, where she received a returning grant (Young Talent Researcher) from a Brazilian programme called Science without borders. Previously she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2011–13) at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France. As part of the Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, she worked on the evaluation and standardisation of dietary assessment methods in Europe and in Latin America. In 2011, she was selected for the European Nutrition Leadership Programme.
Dr Crispim’s PhD thesis focused on the assessment of measurement error and dietary exposure assessments collected with 24-h dietary recalls in European populations.
She was awarded a travel bursary from World Cancer Research Fund International offered exclusively to our Academy Fellows to attend the International Congress on Nutrition in Granada, Spain. Her blog, Financial crisis impacts nutrition, was a hot topic at the congress. Comments from her blog featured in an article discussing the link between cancer and the worsening economy.
Selected publications
> Review and evaluation of innovative technologies for measuring diet in nutritional epidemiology
Dr Yunxia Lu
Epidemiologist & Assistant Professor
Karolinska Insitutet, Sweden
Dr Lu is an epidemiologist who collaborates extensively with clinicians, other epidemiologists and biostatisticians. She is involved in teaching and mentoring graduate students. She has been an Assistant Professor at Karolinska Insitutet since 2009. In 2004–05, she was a visiting scholar at Karolinska Insitutet for nine months, funded by the Swedish Institute. Soon after, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Insitutet for six months. In 2008, she joined Karolinska Insitutet again with a focus on the epidemiology of gastrointestinal cancers.
Dr Lu has a research interest mainly in the aetiology, prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers, with emphases of using methodologies of nutritional epidemiology, clinical epidemiology and pharmaco-epidemiology.
Dr Lu received her medical bachelor from the Medical University of West China (now Si Chuan University), a master and a PhD in epidemiology and biostatistics from the Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.
Selected publications
Dr Caitlin Mason
Research Scientist
University of Washington, Washington, US
Dr Mason is a Research Scientist at the Health Promotion Research Center at the University of Washington conducting dissemination and implementation research to improve the uptake of evidence-based interventions to reduce cancer. Previously she was a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr Anne McTiernan in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Her research interests focus primarily on understanding the mechanisms that link nutrition, exercise and body composition to cancer prevention and control.
She received her MSc (2005) and PhD (2009) in physical activity epidemiology from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.
Selected publications
> Vitamin D3 supplementation during weight loss: a double-blind randomized controlled trial
Dr Christina Pollard
Research Fellow, School of Public Health
Curtin University, Australia
Dr Pollard is a Research Fellow at the School of Public Health at Curtin University. Previously she was co-convenor of the Public Health Association of Australia’s Food and Nutrition Special Interest Group, working with members to stir the advocacy pot to improve public health through better nutrition. She was awarded a five-year Healthway Research into Practice Grant entitled Food Law, Policy and Communications To Improve Public Health. This ambitious project will undertake trend analysis of three large nutrition-related government datasets and develop priority driven research agenda for public health nutrition in Australia.
She is best known for managing the development of Australia’s ‘Go for 2&5’ fruit and vegetable social marketing campaign.
Dr Pollard received her PhD (2009) and MSc in public health (1993) from Curtin University.
Selected publications
Dr Gerda Pot
Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences
King’s College London, UK
Dr Pot was appointed as full-time Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London in 2013. She continues her research on dietary and meal patterns in relation to cardio-metabolic diseases and cancer and took up teaching on diet and cancer as well as food habits.
From 2009 to early 2013, Dr Pot was an Investigator Scientist at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge, UK, where she worked on dietary surveys and methodologies. She was also involved in collaboration with the Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology in Cancer Prevention and Survival in Cambridge, taking part in the workgroup studying dietary patterns and cancer risk.
She completed her PhD degree in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in 2009 where she also obtained both her BSc and MSc degrees in Nutrition and Health. Her PhD thesis was on the effects of fish consumption on colorectal cancer risk studied through conducting a RCT, which was part of the EU project SEAFOODplus.
Selected publications
> Development of the Eating Choices Index (ECI): a four-item index to measure healthiness of diet
Dr Eline van Roekel
Postdoctoral Researcher
Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Dr van Roekel is working as a Postdoctoral Researcher within the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher within the EnCoRe study, which investigates how lifestyle influences quality of life of colorectal cancer survivors, and the underlying biological mechanisms. She is working on a World Cancer Research Fund-funded project aiming to unravel the biological mechanisms underlying the development of persistent fatigue after colorectal cancer, and how these are influenced by levels of sedentary behaviour and physical activity. In 2015, Dr van Roekel visited the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, where she learned about the application of metabolomics within epidemiological research. Subsequently, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the Continuous Update Project mechanisms framework feasibility study, after which she continued her research within the EnCoRe study project.
She completed her PhD within the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University, during which she was involved in setting up the EnCoRe study and investigated associations of physical activity and sedentary behavior with quality of life after colorectal cancer. She conducted part of this work during a visit to the University of Queensland in Australia in 2014, where she analysed accelerometer-derived patterns of sedentary behavior in relation to quality of life outcomes in colorectal cancer survivors included in the EnCoRe study. During her PhD, she was a PhD representative within the GROW – School of Oncology and Developmental Biology at Maastricht University.
Dr van Roekel has authored several abstracts on the EnCoRe study, which have been presented at high-impact international conferences including our joint conference with the World Obesity Federation: Obesity, Physical Activity and Cancer in London. She received a poster prize at the annual WEON Epidemiology conference in the Netherlands (2014), where she presented findings on adherence to the Dutch physical activity guideline and health-related quality of life in long-term colorectal cancer survivors within the EnCoRe study.
She completed a BSc in Biomedical Sciences and an MSc in Epidemiology at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. During her MSc, she undertook a seven-month internship at Birmingham University, UK, assessing the influence of smoking on clinical characteristics of bladder cancer at diagnosis.
Selected publications
> Modelling substitution of sedentary time and quality of life after colorectal cancer
> Light Physical Activity is Associated with Quality of Life after Colorectal Cancer
Dr Daniel Commane
Lecturer
University of Reading, UK
Dr Commane is a lecturer in Human Nutrition at the University of Reading, where he supervises PhD and MSc students on projects exploring diet-gene interactions in relation to biomarkers of bowel cancer risk and also in elucidating dietary influences on gastro-intestinal barrier function.
Dr Commane’s post-doctoral work was conducted at the University of Newcastle, where he coordinated the BORICC study that set out to develop diet-related biomarkers of bowel cancer risk. He is also a Registered Nutritionist with the UK Voluntary Register of Nutritionists.
For his PhD, Dr Commane explored the potential anti-carcinogenic activities of pro and prebiotics at the University of Ulster, UK (2004). He developed his teaching skills at the University of Chester, UK, where he contributed to the Nutrition and Dietetics programmes between 2009 and 2010.
Selected publications
> Nutritional factors and gender influence age-related DNA methylation in the human rectal mucosa
> MYOD-1 in normal colonic mucosa–role as a putative biomarker?
> Diet, ageing and genetic factors in the pathogenesis of diverticular disease
> Quantification of mitochondrial DNA mutation load
Ms Renate Heine-Bröring
Lecturer, Nutrition and Dietetics
Hanze University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
Renate is a Dietician by training, and a Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Hanze University of Applied Sciences. She undertook her PhD on the Colorectal cancer project – a project examining diet, dietary supplements and body fatness in colorectal tumour development, progression and survival at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Her PhD is supervised by Prof Ellen Kampman and supported by Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds. Her work involves analysing and interpreting data from cohort studies on colorectal cancer survivors, sporadic colorectal adenoma patients and Lynch Syndrome patients.
Renate has an MSc in Nutrition and Epidemiology from Wageningen University, which included an internship in cancer prevention at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, US.
Selected publications
Dr Elima Jedy-Agba
Fogarty Coordinator
Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria
Dr Jedy-Agba is the Fogarty Coordinator at the Office of Research, Strategic Information and Training, Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, where she coordinates the National Cancer Registry Program. Her special interests are in cancer registration, epidemiology and research into HIV-associated malignancies.
She is certified in Cancer Registration and Cancer Epidemiology by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and has facilitated at several cancer registration workshops in Nigeria, organised by the Institute of Human Virology in collaboration with IARC and the Federal Ministry of Health.
She obtained her MBBCH (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) from the University of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, and has an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, UK.
Selected publications
> Cancer incidence in Nigeria: a report from population-based cancer registries
Dr Salome A Rebello
Postdoctoral Research Associate
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dr Rebello is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Life Sciences Institute, National University of Singapore. She is part of an initiative that uses a cross-disciplinary multi-sectoral approach in understanding the increasing prevalence of obesity and type-2 diabetes in Asia.
She is engaged in departmental efforts to refine dietary capture tools and to update the local dietary database with regards to important chemopreventive nutrients including folate and vitamin D. She is interested in understanding the relationship between dietary exposures and chronic disease prevention in Asian populations.
Dr Rebello obtained a PhD in Nutrition from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, US (2009) that focused on the metabolism of soy isoflavonoids and its role in prostate cancer prevention in men at higher risk of developing the disease. She was awarded the University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2007–08) to support her research work and a graduate student teaching award from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture for her work as a Teaching Assistant (2005).
Selected publications
> Salt intakes and salt reduction initiatives in Southeast Asia: a review
> Coffee consumption and cardiovascular health: getting to the heart of the matter
Dr Dominique Scherer
Postdoctoral Fellow
National Center for Tumor Diseases Preventive Oncology, Germany
Dr Scherer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Division of Preventive Oncology at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg. She is involved in projects that aim to identify genetic as well as environmental risk factors that predispose individuals to colorectal cancer, or influence survival or therapy response in colorectal cancer patients.
Previously she held postdoctoral positions in the US and Germany. At Stanford University in the US, she analysed lymphoblastoid cell lines to identify genetic variants that associate with inter-individual differences in drug response. While at the Division of Molecular Genetic Epidemiology, Würzburg, she worked on the identification of genetic and genomic markers, which associate with risk of melanoma or with survival and therapy response in melanoma patients.
Her PhD work was awarded with summa cum laude by the University of Heidelberg (2009) and was on the role of polymorphisms in pigmentation related and DNA repair genes in basal cell carcinoma of the skin and melanoma.
Selected publications
> A review of the application of inflammatory biomarkers in epidemiologic cancer research
Dr Tony Ka Chun Yung
Senior Lecturer
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dr Yung is a senior lecturer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on dietary behaviours of vulnerable populations and he has worked on a study supported by World Cancer Research Fund UK, which investigated whether changes in food and supplements consumption before and after diagnosis affected the quality of life in breast cancer survivors.
Dr Yung is registered as an Accredited Practising Dietitian in Australia, as well as a Sports Dietitian and an Accredited Nutritionist. Previously, he taught public health nutrition to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
He studied for a PhD in public health nutrition at the School of Public Health and Primary Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has a MSc in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Sydney, Australia (2002).
Selected publications
> Influence of country of study on student responsiveness to the H1N1 pandemic
> Maternal influences on fruit and vegetable consumption of schoolchildren: case study in Hong Kong
Dr Will Chan
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dr Will Chan is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong. He is co-investigator on a research project at the University of Hong Kong, which aims to develop the world’s leading case-control study of nasopharyngeal carcinoma based in southern China.
His research interests extend to nutritional epidemiology, cancer, clinical and molecular epidemiology, prevention, and dietary and lifestyle intervention.
In 2006, he obtained an MSc in Research in Medicine, and he holds an MBBS degree.
Selected publications
> Adverse systemic arterial function in patients with selenium deficiency
Dr Helen Coleman (nee Mulholland)
Lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cancer Epidemiology
Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Dr Coleman holds a Cancer Research UK Postdoctoral Fellowship; she is working to establish new cohort that will allow her to study the association between tumour markers of vitamin D, related genetic variants and colon cancer progression. She was appointed Lecturer in Cancer Epidemiology at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2013, where she has developed a module on Cancer Trends around the World for undergraduate medicine students.
Previously, Dr Coleman undertook a Visiting Research Fellow placement at Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, Nashville, US, to develop her expertise in colorectal polyp and cancer research.
She completed her PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland (2009), where she won the best PhD prize for that year. She carried out epidemiological research looking at dietary glycaemic index, glycaemic load and carbohydrate intake in the context of cancer risk. She completed a BSc in Human Nutrition with first class honours from the University of Ulster, UK (2006).
Selected publications
Dr Jessica Kiefte-de Jong
Assistant Professor, Global Public Health
Leiden University, the Netherlands
Dr Jong is Assistant Professor of Global Public Health at Leiden University. Previously, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on nutrition and ageing research at the Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has worked as a Clinical Dietitian at hospitals in the Netherlands, including Groene Hart Hospital, Gouda and VU Medical Centre, Amsterdam.
Dr Jong obtained her PhD from the Erasmus Medical Centre in 2012. It focused on early life nutrition, allergies and the gastro-intestinal tract in childhood, and was embedded in the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study from foetal life until young adulthood.
She completed an MSc in Public Health Research from Wageningen University in Amsterdam, where she explored the influence of HLA-DR expression and nutritional status on clinical outcome in head and neck cancer receiving radiotherapy, as well as looking at DNA methylation and anti-oxidant therapy in uremic patients.
Selected publications
> Infant feeding and anti-tissue transglutaminase antibody concentrations in the Generation R Study
> Physical activity and respiratory symptoms in children: The generation R study
Dr Fariba Kolahdooz
Assistant Director of Research with the Aboriginal and Global Health Research Group
University of Alberta, Canada
Dr Kolahdooz is Assistant Director of Research with the Aboriginal and Global Health Research Group. Her role involves helping train staff and developing methodology and intervention activities.
She previously worked as a Research Assistant Professor at the Ministry of Health, Iran, where she was responsible for providing scientific advice, as well as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Iran University of Medical Sciences, where she taught, supervised student projects and carried out research.
Prior to her academic career, she worked as a Senior Nutrition Officer for the Nutrition Department at the Ministry of Health in Iran, where she was in charge of designing and implementing public health research projects and national surveys.
Dr Kolahdooz completed a PhD in Nutrition from the School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Her PhD, which was funded by a scholarship from the World Bank, explored the links between dietary factors and ovarian cancer risk.
She also has an MSc in Nutrition from the National Nutrition & Food Technology Institute at the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran. She also has an MSc in Nutrition from the National Nutrition & Food Technology Institute at the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran.
Selected publications
> Meat, fish, and esophageal cancer risk: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
> Islamic fasting and weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis
> Carbohydrate intake, glycemic load, glycemic index, and risk of ovarian cancer
Dr Selby Nichols
Lecturer & Head of Department
University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Dr Nichols is a lecturer in Nutrition and Head of the Department of Agriculture Economics and Extension at the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, University of the West Indies, in Trinidad and Tobago.
In addition to his teaching and student thesis supervising duties, Selby carries out research on nutrition and public health. His publications cover nutritional and anthropometric assessment, obesity and chronic non-communicable diseases, dietary intervention, adolescent health and body image perception.
He has a PhD in Nutrition from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, and an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, at University College of London, UK.
Selected publications
> Correlates of adiposity in a Caribbean pre-school population
Dr Fikru Tesfaye Tullu
Associate Professor
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Dr Tullu is Associate Professor at the School of Public Health of the Addis Ababa University. His academic duties include lecturing on public health nutrition, both at postgraduate and undergraduate level, as well as supervising the research of postgraduate students. Dr Tullu also conducts his own applied research on health, and serves as a consultant for the Federal Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund, and the WHO Africa Regional Office.
He provided expertise to The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to assess the management capacities and performances of funding recipients in Ethiopia. He has also provided consultancy to the Federal Ministry of Health and the WHO Ethiopia Country Office on the development of the National Strategic Framework for the Prevention and Control of Chronic Diseases in Ethiopia.
In addition to his degree in Medicine, he has an MSc in Public Health from the Addis Ababa University and a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from the Umeå University, Sweden.
Selected publications
Dr Bianca Benassi-Evans
Postdoctoral Fellow
CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences, Australia
Dr Benassi-Evans’s research interests include the impact of nutrition on genome health, and dietary patterns for weight loss and impact on genome health and colorectal cancer risk.
Selected publications
Dr Genevieve Buckland
Nutritional Epidemiologist
Catalan Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain
Dr Buckland is a Nutritional Epidemiologist at the Catalan Institute of Oncology. Previously a Research Fellow at this institution, she has carried out research within the EPIC cohort, from the Barcelona centre that focuses on gastric cancer (Eur-Gast project). She also collaborated on projects in Interact, including the relationship between type 2 diabetes and the Mediterranean diet (in EPIC Europe and Epic-Spain) and type 2 diabetes and glycaemia index and glycaemia load. Additionally, she collaborated in the Panacea project on the Mediterranean diet and obesity led by Dora Romaguera.
She obtained her PhD on adherence to the Mediterranean diet and risk of chronic diseases, and holds an MSc in Public Health Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London.
Selected publications
Dr Christina Dahm
Associate Professor, Department of Public Health
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark
Dr Dahm’s research focuses on nutrition, non-communicable disease and anthropometry. Her work involves the Diet, Cancer and Health cohort in Denmark, as well as the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). She held a six-month Visiting Scientist position at the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston US, working with the Nurses’ Health Study II on diet and prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Selected publications
> Adipose tissue trans-fatty acids and changes in body weight and waist circumference
Dr Tsogzolmaa Dorjgochoo
Research Fellow
Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, US
Dr Dorjgochoo’s main research interests include risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and breast and reproductive cancers, and their progression or survivorship, lifestyle and dietary factors, as well as oxidative stress and antioxidants (vitamins and polyphenols).
Selected publications
Dr Anne Gilsing
Postdoctoral Fellow
McMaster University, Canada
Dr Gilsing is a Postdoctoral Fellow at McMaster University where she focuses on nutrition, body composition and healthy ageing. She completed her PhD on the associations between meat consumption, vegetarian and low-meat diets and the risk of cancer in 2014 at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, on a project funded by World Cancer Research Fund. Dr Gilsing also worked on the EPIC-Oxford Study during her MPhil, as well as cancer epidemiology, involving the Netherlands Cohort study on diet and cancer.
Selected publications
> Dietary heme iron and the risk of colorectal cancer with specific mutations in KRAS and APC
Dr Roselle Lee
Research Associate
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dr Lee’s main research interests include the effect of dietary and lifestyle factors on breast cancer prognosis, dietary patterns and health outcomes, intergenerational transfer of dietary patterns, and the roles of media in dietary intakes.
Selected publications
> Brief communication: energy and protein intake in a sample of hospitalized elderly in Hong Kong
