Training Grant in Cancer Prevention and Control in Priority Populations

The program’s goals are to: 1) Provide a tailored curriculum integrating biological, medical, epidemiologic, behavioral, and community perspectives in CPC research in priority populations; 2) Promote interdisciplinary approaches to CPC research; and 3) Foster multidisciplinary research careers in CPC among trainees through mentored research. Read more about our curriculum.

The core mentoring faculty is multidisciplinary, including experts in cancer prevention and screening, health disparities, comparative effectiveness, behavioral psychology, genetics, molecular epidemiology, and palliative care. Read about our mentors. 

This is a non-ACGME program.

We accept applications in a rolling fashion in the fall-winter preceding the fellowship start date (July 1 of each year). To apply, submit the following here: 

1. A cover letter describing yourself and your interests in the CPC post-doctoral fellowship training; 
2. Your curriculum vitae; 
3. Information about your citizenship and/or visa status. 

Three letters of recommendation will be required after the initial screening process, though these can be sent initially if desired. Letters of recommendation should be from faculty members who are familiar with the applicant's qualifications. One of these letters must be from the director of the current or most recent clinical training program. 

Please direct all inquiries to: 

Megan McVeety
Program Coordinator
Division of General Internal Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Phone: 212-241-0047
Fax: 212-824-2317
Email: megan.mcveety@mountsinai.org

Second year:

Pakhi Goel, MBBS, MPH is a Clinical Instructor within the Division of General Internal Medicine. She earned a MPH with a concentration in health promotion and disease prevention from ISMMS, where she also completed her preventive medicine residency. With an MBBS from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi), she trained in internal medicine at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dr. Goel’s research is centered around developing models to achieve health equity and improve cancer care delivery. Her projects as a T32 fellow include 1) implementing an intervention aimed at improving cancer clinical trial accruals; 2) developing a rubric to quantitatively assess the quality of pain conversations between oncologists and their patients with advanced cancers; and 3) improve colorectal cancer screening metrics at the Bronx VA.

Tessa Manwaring Jones, Phd, LMSW is a research fellow in the Division of General Internal Medicine. She is a licensed social worker who received her MSW and PhD in social work from New York University. Dr. Jones’s research focuses on health equity for seriously ill older adults. She has a particular interest in the home health care setting, and the quality and equity of serious illness care in the home health setting. Her current projects as a T32 fellow include 1) collaborating with colleagues at TCI to integrate a Social Determinants of Health Questionnaire for Mount Sinai outpatient ambulatory cancer sites; 2) examining the association between social work visits and disparities in hospice enrollment for lung cancer patients; and 3) examining the relationship between home health care use and Medicare Advantage vs traditional Medicare.

First year:

Jeremy Mudd, MD is a clinical fellow in the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. He received his MD from Brown University and completed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. His research focuses on long-term survival outcomes and adverse effects in patients with early-stage lung cancer. Currently, Dr. Mudd is examining differences in survival rates in patients with early-stage lung cancer undergoing stereotactic body radiation versus sub-lobar surgical resection.

Leah Walsh, PhD is a clinical psychologist and Instructor in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. Prior to joining the T32, she received her PhD from Fordham University and was a predoctoral research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a predoctoral clinical fellow in psychiatric oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Walsh’s research focuses on the development of feasible, acceptable, and targeted psychosocial interventions for caregivers of patients with advanced cancers. She is also working on a project identifying differences in prognostic understanding between cancer patients and their oncologists.

Suzanne Vang, PhD is a former T32 Fellow at the Center for Behavioral Oncology in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She received her Ph.D. in Social Work from Columbia University. Her research focuses on investigating and addressing cancer screening disparities in medically underserved populations, particularly in Asian Pacific Islanders, Latinas, and African Americans. Dr. Vang was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Cancer Society to develop and pilot test culturally- and linguistically-tailored decision aids to improve breast density care for Latina women with high breast density.  After completing the program, she was awarded an NCI K01 entitled “CLEAN: A community-engaged intervention to increase colorectal cancer screening in Chinese American immigrants.” Dr. Vang is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU.

Deborah Marshall, MD, MSCR is a former T32 and Holman Pathway research fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in comparative ethnic studies and working in immigration law, Dr. Marshall pursued her medical training and a MS in Clinical Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. She then completed her transitional year internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and residency in radiation oncology at Mount Sinai. As a research fellow, she led a multidisciplinary team studying female sexual toxicity after pelvic radiotherapy supported by grants from the Patty Brisben Foundation, NRG Oncology, and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO.  Her clinical scientific research focuses on clinical and population-based radiation toxicity outcomes in priority populations including women and persons with HIV. Her social scientific research focuses on financial conflicts of interest in medicine and health policy. After completing the program, Dr. Marshall was awarded an NIH Office of the Director New Investigator Award (DP5) entitled “Novel Functional Anatomic and Biomarker Indices of Radiation-Induced Female Sexual Toxicities in a Multi-Center Cohort.” Dr. Marshall is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Stacyann Bailey, PhD is a former T32 fellow who earned her PhD in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and completed her undergraduate studies at the City College of New York. Dr. Bailey is trained in the assessment of bone matrix quality and mechanical properties, which degrades with aging and diseases. Her research interest lies in the development of new strategies to predict, manage, and mitigate pathological fractures in cancer patients. As a research fellow, she investigated the clinical and pathological characteristics associated with knowledge and perceived risk of osteoporosis and adherence to behaviors that promote bone health in older breast cancer patients. Currently, Dr. Bailey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UMass Amherst, where she has been awarded an NCI R21 entitled “The role of extracellular matrix quality in the prediction of metastasis-induced skeletal fragility and response to immunotherapy.”

Amanda Leiter, MD, MS is a former T32 fellow who received her MD and MS in Clinical Research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She then completed an internal medicine residency and clinical endocrinology fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her research interests relate to the intersection of metabolic disease and cancer—specifically focused on how metabolic disease impacts cancer outcomes and vice versa, and how cancer diagnosis and treatments impact metabolic diseases. Dr. Leiter is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease at the Icahn School of Medicine, and was recently awarded an American Cancer Society Clinician Scientist Development Grant and an NIDDK K08 entitled “Optimizing diabetes treatment strategies in complex comorbidity.”

Melissa Mazor, RN, MS, PhD is a former T32 fellow. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount Sinai, she was a postdoctoral fellow at NYU and the VA Quality Scholar Program in the UCSF Division of Geriatrics. Melissa received her PhD and MS in nursing from University of California, San Francisco and BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research investigates cancer survivorship outcomes in vulnerable populations. She is particularly interested in developing and implementing culturally sensitive, community-based interventions to mitigate distress, symptom burden, and survivorship outcomes in underserved Black, Latinx, and Asian American cancer survivors. She has received an NCI K08 award entitled “The Development and Evaluation of a Community-Based, Early Palliative Care Intervention for Black Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer.” Currently, Dr. Mazor is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Assistant Director of Community Outreach and Engagement for the Tisch Cancer Institute.
Megan C. Edmonds, PhD, MPH is a behavioral health scientist and former T32 fellow. Her research is focused on reducing racial disparities in breast cancer survivorship and community planning. She received her PhD in Behavioral and Social Sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University, MPH from the University of Michigan with a concentration in Health Behavior and Health Education and a BA in Psychology from Spelman College. Dr. Edmonds utilizes mixed methodology approaches to assess breast cancer disparities to improve cancer survivorship outcomes (e.g., surveillance care) in Black and underserved women. After completing the program, she transitioned to a faculty position at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Public Health. Currently, Dr. Edmonds works at the Scientific Review Branch of the National Institute on Aging.

Christina Wang, MD is a former T32 fellow who received her BA in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Molecular and Cell Biology at Cornell University. She then completed her MD from New York Medical College and internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center prior to her fellowship training at Mount Sinai, where she was a chief fellow in the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on investigating disparities in colon cancer incidence and survivorship in Asian Americans, with the ultimate goal of investigating and reducing colon cancer screening disparities among this population. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at the Icahn School of Medicine and was recently awarded an ACS Clinician Scientist Development Grant and an NCI K08 entitled “Chi Gung: A Community-based Strategy in Chinese Immigrant Women to Improve Colorectal and Breast Cancer Screening.

Lauren Carney, PhD is a clinical psychologist and former T32 fellow. She received her BA in Psychology and Mathematics from the College of New Jersey. She then received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut and completed her clinical internship in the Behavioral Medicine Service at Yale New Haven Hospital with a focus in psycho-oncology. Her research focuses on adapting existing psychosocial interventions to improve the sexual health of diverse women post-radiotherapy. As a research fellow, she investigated the lack of evidence-based, comprehensive psychosocial interventions for women with gynecologic cancer (GC) post-pelvic radiotherapy (PRT), and more broadly, for ethnically and racially diverse cancer patients. Currently, Dr. Carney is a Research Scientist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine.

Daniel Nathan, MD is a former T32 fellow who received his BS in Psychology from Carleton College and his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He then completed an internal medicine residency and clinical fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine, where he was chief fellow. His research focuses on genetic risk factors for the development of myeloid neoplasms and hematologic disease. He has worked on several projects examining clonal hematopoiesis in individuals with IBD and HIV. As a research fellow, he was awarded an AIDS Malignancy Consortium Domestic Scholars Award. Dr. Nathan is currently an Instructor in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine and was recently awarded a K12 Paul Calabresi Career Development Award in Clinical Oncolology from the Tisch Cancer Institute.

Ji Yoon Yoon, MD is a gastroenterologist and former T32 fellow. She received her medical degree from the University of Oxford. She earned a Master’s in Clinical Research (MSCR) from ISMMS, where she also completed an internal medicine residency. Dr. Yoon then completed a gastroenterology clinical fellowship at Mount Sinai and was Chief Fellow. She is interested in cancer epidemiology and screening, and the use of decision-analytic modeling in the evaluation of cancer mitigation strategies. She is specifically interested in upper GI cancers (esophageal, gastric), which disproportionately affect minority and immigrant populations. She was recently awarded an ACS Clinician Scientist Development Grant entitled “Targeted Approach to Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Screening.” Currently, Dr. Yoon is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at ISMMS.

Former trainees have gone on to pursue academic research careers. Our alumni have a strong record of publications and have received research career development awards and independent research grants from the NIH, American Cancer Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, and more.