DF/HCC Celebration of Early Career Investigators in Cancer Research
Early career investigators are a unique reservoir of new ideas, innovation, and excellence in cancer research. To celebrate this, we welcome you to join the 13th Annual DF/HCC Celebration of Early Career Investigators in Cancer Research. This symposium will showcase the talent of early career investigators at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) who work in several areas of population science, including epidemiology, biostatistics, outcomes, diversity, and survivorship. We invite all members of the public to attend the event. We warmly invite students, post-docs, residents, and clinical fellows to submit abstracts for consideration as oral or poster presentations. We look forward to an exciting afternoon of discussion, sharing new discoveries, and building new collaborations. – Lorelei Mucci, ScD (HSPH), Erica Feick (DFCI), Bailey Vaselkiv (HSPH), Hannah Guard (HSPH), and Megan Shanahan (HSPH).
This event will be held at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Yawkey Conference Center.
2025 Award Winners
Best Oral Presentation:
Analí Castellanos-Gutiérrez
Most Innovative Idea:
Lauren Finkelstein
Best Poster Presentation:
James Duffy
2025 Agenda
NOVEMBER 4, 2025
1:00 – 1:10 pm 10 minutes
Welcome and Introductions
Ramesh Shivdasani, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of the DF/HCC Lorelei A. Mucci, ScD, MPH, Associate Director of the Population Science Programs at the DF/HCC
1:10 – 1:50 pm 40 minutes
Keynote Speaker
Jane J Kim, PhD KT Li Professorship in Health Economics at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Visit Profile
"Cervical Cancer Prevention: The Quintessential and Persistent Public Health Challenge"
Abstract: Effective and cost-effective preventive strategies against cervical cancer have been available for several decades. HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening hold such promise that the World Health Organization Director General issued a call for the global elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem in 2018. Despite these available options, cervical cancer remains hugely burdensome with wide disparities in incidence and mortality around the globe, and even within the United States. This talk chronicles the progress towards cervical cancer elimination over the past two decades and the many remaining challenges. I discuss this quintessential public health problem from the lens of decision sciences as an approach to evidence-based decision making that has informed policy recommendations for HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening in the United States and globally. Professional development and lessons learned through research collaborations, which were found to be portable to leadership roles more broadly, are shared.
1:50 – 2:35 pm 45 minutes
Oral Presentation Session I
Rebecca Bromley-Dulfano, MS: Integration of Safety Net Hospitals into Healthcare Systems and Specialty Care Access Analí Castellanos-Gutiérrez, MD, MS: Adherence to the planetary health diet and the risk of breast cancer in the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer Derek Chang, BA: Clinical and Genomic Characteristics of Post-Colonoscopy Colorectal Cancer Ashley Odai-Afotey, MD: Early postoperative opioid fills after cancer-directed surgery among Medicare beneficiaries by race and ethnicity Xinan Wang, MS: AI-Derived Body Composition Analysis Reveals Muscle Volume and Metformin-Associated Adipose Effects and the Obesity Paradox in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
2:35 – 3:00 pm 25 minutes
Break
3:00 – 3:45 45 minutes
Oral Presentation Session II
Fuyu Guo, MS: Taking into account the susceptible window for exposures in Cox proportional hazard Model: a new model using splines to model the lag-risk relationship Priyanka Gautom, PhD, MPH: The Role of Community Advisory Boards at NCI-Designated Cancer Centers: Findings from a Qualitative Analysis Austin Waters, PhD, MSPH: Multi-Level Anti-LGBTQ+ Stigma and Hypervigilance and Health Outcomes Among LGBTQ+ Cancer Caregivers Kathryn Post, PhD, RN: Improving endocrine therapy initiation and breast cancer care equity with a nurse-led, culturally sensitive intervention
3:45 – 5:15 pm 1 hour, 30 minutes
Poster Session and Reception
Isaac Allen, PhD: Initiation of Active Surveillance, and Continuation from Active Surveillance to Curative Treatment, in A Cohort of Health Professionals Diagnosed with Low and Favorable-Intermediate Risk Prostate Cancer Kiana Angalia, BS: Pilot Randomized Trial of An Informational and Supportive Care Intervention for Patients Initiating Multimodality Therapy For Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer (LARC). Yufeng Chen, MD, PhD: Polygenic Risk Score and Risk of Post-Colonoscopy Colorectal Cancer and High-Risk Polyps Cami Christopher, MPH: Perceived Barriers to Diet and Exercise among Survivors of Pediatric Brain and Central Nervous System Tumors Michelle Chudnovsky: Cardiorespiratory Fitness Among Hispanic/Latina Breast Cancer Survivors: A Comparison with Age-Matched Women Elizabeth Cox, PhD: Physical Activity and Bone Fracture Risk in a Cohort of Prostate Cancer Patients: Results from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study James Duffy, BS: BMT-CARE App: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Psychosocial Digital Application for Caregivers of Patients Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem-Cell Transplantation Xin Fang, PhD: Metals Metabolites Linked to Reproductive Aging: A Mixture and Machine Learning Approach, NHANES 2003-2018 Yile Fang, PhD: Head-to-Head Comparison of Analog-Filament Vs Digital-CNT X-ray Sources Lauren Finkelstein, MA: Writing Content Predicts Cancer-Related Trauma and Fear Outcomes in Written Exposure to Worst-Case Scenarios for Advanced Cancer Anna Flynn, BS: They’re in Control: A Descriptive Analysis of AIM Trial Control Participants Electing the Exercise Intervention After the Study Period Jifan Gao, PhD: Count-Based Approaches Remain Strong: A Benchmark Against Transformer and LLM Pipelines on Structured EHR Connor Grady, MPH: Comparing Strategies of Abiraterone Vs. Enzalutamide For Risk of Mortality in Advanced Prostate Cancer: A Target Trial Emulation Using Data From the IRONMAN Registry Yoon Sik Jung, BS: Cancer FactFinder: Translating Scientific Evidence to Address Cancer Misinformation Roka Kakehi, MS: A Meta-Analysis on the Association between Yogurt Consumption and Risk of Colorectal Cancer by Anatomic Site of Colon and Calcium Intake René Karadakic, PhD: The Value of (Sub) Specialization: Evidence from Oncology Li-Wei Kuo, PhD: c-MET enrichment in STAS cells Disseminated From Early-Stage NSCLC Phuong Anh Le, MS: Adherence to the EAT-Lancet Reference Diet in Adolescence and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer Among US Women Zichao Li, PhD: Does Medicaid Expansion Help to Close Breast Cancer Mortality Gap? A Difference-In-Differences Analysis Nan Lin, PhD: The Role of Distress-related Metabolic Dysfunction in Ovarian Cancer Development Shupeng Luxu: GeneGrad: Geometric Gradient-Based Biomarker Discovery in Single-Cell Transcriptomics Yue Ma, PhD: Comparative Assessment of Risk Factors for Colorectal Polyps and Cancer, and the Transition from Colorectal Polyps to Cancer Jennifer Marks, MD: MTAP Deficiency in Thymic Epithelial Tumors Colleen McGrath, SM: The Association Between Coping and Social Resilience Factors with Psychiatric Morbidity During Cancer Survivorship in the Stress and Gene Analysis (SAGA) Cohort Xiang Meng, PhD: A Doubly Robust Estimator for Ratio and Difference in Average Hazard: Improving Interpretability and Reliability in Survival Analysis Alexis Miranda, MS: An Intersectional Approach to Cancer Disparities Research: Evaluating the Potential of MAIHDA Models as a Method for Disparity Identification Ana Nogal, PhD: Gut Microbial and Metabolic Alterations Preceding Colorectal Polyp Diagnosis Brett Ranieri, MPH: Impact of a Structured Exercise Program on Shoulder Range of Motion in Latina and/or Hispanic Breast Cancer Survivors Mónica Robles Fontan, MA: Adjusting for Exposure Misclassification in Time-Varying Vaccine Effectiveness Studies Andrea Romanos-Nanclares, PhD: Cruciferous Vegetable Intake, Dietary Glucosinolate and Risk of Breast Cancer in 2 Large Prospective Studies Emmanuelle Rosenthal, MPH: Self-Conscious Emotions and Personal Identity after Cancer: Pride, Shame, and Guilt among Young Adult Survivors Niloufar Saririan, BS: Inverse-Probability Weighting for Selection Bias in Tumor Biomarker Studies Swapnil Vallecha, BS: Effect of Proximity to Physical Activity Facilities on Anthropometric Measures in Breast Cancer Survivors Ian Vasicka, MD: Women Living with HIV (WLWH) in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Vulnerable Population with Increased Susceptibility to Cervical Cancer Emily Walsh, PhD: Characteristics Associated with Quality of Life, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms among Caregivers of Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer Qin Wang, PhD: Targeting Etiological HPV Cell-Free DNA in Blood for Early Detection of HPV Cancers and Precancers Bingxian Xu, PhD: Towards the Construction of a Virtual Cell Ruolin Zhang, MS: Obesity Genetic Risk and Ultra-processed Food Consumption on Long-Term Weight Change: A Gene-Environment Interaction Analysis in the Women's Genome Health Study
5:15 pm
Award Announcement
Best Oral Presentation Most Innovative Idea Best Poster Presentation