On-Campus Mentors

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Amr Soliman has been collaborating with faculty in Africa, the Middle East, and minority populations in the U.S. to develop a program in international cancer epidemiology and migration studies. This has led to a strong research infrastructure with several centers in Africa to investigate the epidemiology of colorectal, cervical, and breast cancers. The U54 research training program that he has led in Tanzania and the inflammatory breast cancer research study that he leads in North Africa are major components of his research that provides significant opportunities for research training of students of the NCI-funded R25 Cancer Epidemiology Education in Special Populations (CEESP) program. The CEESP program was funded from the NCI in 2006 and is continuing through the current third 5-year grant cycle that ends in 2021. Dr. Soliman has also conducted collaborative research with the minority-focused SEER registry in Detroit, the Michigan Cancer Consortium, the State Cancer Registry of Michigan, and the Arab American Center for Social and Economic Services in Dearborn, Michigan. He has also established research studies with the African and Asian refugees in Nebraska and with minority populations in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. His research mentoring experience includes working with trainees from minority and underserved populations. His research also includes access to cancer care, screening, and early detection in these populations.

Learn more here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/amr-soliman

I serve on this CEESP grant because of my expertise in cancer education, research training, and epidemiologic research in minority and underserved settings. I served on the NCI review group, Subcommittee G for many years, and most recently was Chair. I am a Fellow and Past-President of the American Association for Cancer Education. I led the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Training Program, with support from NCI R25E and R25T grants for 18 years until my retirement in 2012. I have worked closely with Dr. Soliman on the CEESP program from its beginning at the University of Michigan, at the University of Nebraska, now at CUNY. I have chaired the Advisory Committee (AC) of the CEESP program over the past 10 years. In 2005, I was selected as a charter member of the University of Texas Academy of Health Science Education. In 2006, the American Association for Cancer Education honored me with their highest award; the Margaret Hay Edwards Medal for outstanding contributions in cancer education. In research, I have developed educationally based recruitment strategies for chemoprevention trials and I was member of the Outcomes Committee of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) that is involved with most of the group’s trials. I have mentored many trainees in their research, particularly in molecular, genetic, and social epidemiology, including many CEESP students.

Learn more here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/noel-manyindo

Victoria Ngo is an Associate Professor of Community Health and Social Sciences at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy (CUNY SPH), Director of the Center for Innovation in Mental Health at CUNY SPH, and Mental Health Director of the Center for Immigrant, Refugee and Global Health at CUNY.

She also holds an Adjunct Scientist position at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on developing mental health interventions and implementation strategies to promote access and quality of care to ethnic minorities and underserved populations worldwide. She specializes in implementation strategies for mental health task-sharing and use of community participatory methods to increase access to evidence-based mental health interventions and sustainable integration of mental health services into non-mental health settings including primary care, maternal health, HIV, cancer care, schools, and other community-based settings. She has led several NIH and Grand Challenges of Canada funded task-shifting implementation science intervention studies, including the Multi-Component Collaborative Care for Depression (MCCD), Livelihood Integration for Effective Depression Management (LIFE-DM), and currently leading a randomized controlled study of scale-up models for depression care integration into primary care clinics in Vietnam. As part of system transformation initiatives to address health inequities at NIH and RWJF, she is leading the Harlem Strong Mental Health and Economic Empowerment Collaborative to transform systems of care using a neighborhood-based collaborative care model to support integrating mental health and community-based services in housing, primary care, and community-based organization in Harlem. In addition, she serves as a Senior Technical Advisor for USAID Victims of Torture Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Trauma Impacted Communities Grant portfolio and leads a Learning Collaborative for grantees of this initiative. She also works closely with city government, including the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York Office of Opportunity, New York Public Housing Authority, and the Mayor’s Office to support mental health integration into a variety of settings for diverse communities.

https://sph.cuny.edu/about/people/faculty/victoria-ngo/

Dr. Lubetkin’s publications have focused on health literacy and information in Haitians, examining intuitive cancer risk perceptions in Haitian- Creole and Spanish populations, promoting cancer prevention and control in community-based HIV/AIDS service organizations, differences in patient activation across new immigrants, diverse language subgroups, and the intersection of HIV/AIDS and cancer. She also has published extensively on patient-reported outcomes, particularly, health-related quality of life, and measuring the burden of disease due to chronic diseases and health risk behaviors. She currently serves as the chair of an international health inequalities special interest group (through the EuroQol Group) and a member of the Large Scale Applications (LSA) Working Group.

Learn more here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/erica-lubetkin

Dr. Albritton is an Assistant Medical Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine. Dr. Albritton has extensive training in community-based behavioral intervention research, particularly with minority populations, in both urban and rural communities. She completed a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS and School of Public Health. Her research focuses on sexually transmitted infections and HIV prevention intervention among African American adolescents. She also examines the individual, interpersonal, community and environmental level factors that influence risk and protective behaviors. The scope of Dr. Albritton’s research includes adolescent sexual and reproductive health and health services, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections prevention interventions, urban and rural sexually transmitted infections disparities, community health, community-based participatory research, and social technology innovation and intervention research.

Learn more here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/tashuna-albritton

Chloe Teasdale is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Her research focuses on the health of children, adolescents and pregnant women in the US and globally. Prior to completing her PhD, she spent several years working in South Africa overseeing monitoring and evaluation for mothers2mothers, a regional public health organization focused on reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV through peer support and education. This formative experience in public health practice, working with healthcare providers and mothers across seven African countries, fueled her passion to improve health services for women and children around the world and continues to inform her approach to research. A major focus of Dr. Teasdale’s work has been using routinely collected medical record data from HIV care and treatment service sites to examine patient outcomes. She has designed and evaluated targeted service interventions for children, adolescents and pregnant women, including a novel differentiated care model aimed at retaining pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent and young women living with HIV in Kenya. She has also conducted research on the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on pediatric populations, including studies on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among parents in the US and NYC.

https://sph.cuny.edu/about/people/faculty/chloe-teasdale/

Terry Huang is Professor and Chair in Heath Policy and Management and Director of the Center for Systems and Community Design at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

He chaired the Department of Health Promotion at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) from 2010-2014. Prior to returning to academia, Dr. Huang was a senior leader in the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the integration of systems science and chronic disease prevention. Dr. Huang is a global leader on systems-oriented community health, cross-sectoral partnerships, design thinking, collective impact, and the translation of science to policy.

Dr. Huang has lectured and published extensively on these topics. His current work continues to focus on innovative strategies for systems change, including the development of Firefly Innovations, a public health entrepreneurship platform housed at the CUNY SPH. Dr. Huang received the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Innovation Award in 2010 and the NIH Director’s Award in 2011. In addition, he received the National Cancer Institute Award of Merit in 2012 and was named UNMC Distinguished Scientist in 2013. Dr. Huang holds a PhD in Preventive Medicine and an MPH from the University of Southern California, and a BA in Psychology from McGill University. He is Board Certified in Public Health (CPH) and Fellow, Councilor, and Past Program Chair of The Obesity Society. He is also VP North America of the World Obesity Federation.

https://sph.cuny.edu/about/people/faculty/terry-huang/

At the molecular level, cells senses and responds to environmental cues such as energy level, glucose, protein and mitogens via a-sensing protein termed the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR). mTOR is a central regulator of normal cell metabolism and cancer metabolism. As such, dysregulation of mTOR signaling pathway is implicated in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases including insulin resistance, diabetes and cancer. Her research interests focus on the role of mTOR signal transduction in pancreatic diseases including diabetes, metabolic disease and pancreatic cancer. Research models used in the laboratory include cell culture, mouse models of pancreatic cancer, and clinical samples. My transdisciplinary research portfolio spans cardiometabolic and cancer research, chronic disease prevention, population health, school nutrition, systems biology, and laboratory-based nutrient metabolism. The research integrates nutrigenomic regulation of the Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, targeted metabolomics, diet, and exposomics, as well as the use of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) databases to investigate the causal role of mTOR and nutrients in diabetes and obesity, to explain health outcomes, and inform repurposing opportunities of FDA-approved mTOR inhibitors. She has a well-established track record, both in research and teaching, and taught several courses on human nutrition across the life-course, community nutrition education, and nutrient metabolism. Dr. Soliman’s Public health nutrition research is centered on optimal nutrition as an integral part of public health promotion and disease prevention. Her community nutrition research focuses on childhood obesity prevention, school nutrition, adult obesity and weight management among individuals, community, and across populations, as well as wellness programs in the workplace. To promote optimal health; the comprehensive weight management programs emphasize nutritious well-balanced diet, physical activity, and behavioral modification to achieve and sustain healthy weight.

Learn more here: https://sph.cuny.edu/about/people/faculty/ghada-soliman/

Dr. Frye arrived at the CUNY School of Medicine/Sophie Davis Program in Biomedical Education in late 2015, after serving as the Head of the Laboratory of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the New York Blood Center and as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Frye’s research combines epidemiological and social science theories and methods to study the distribution, determinants and health consequences of intimate partner and sexual violence and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, she designs and tests multi-level and multi-component interventions to prevent HIV and violence. Dr. Frye is currently the PI of two NIH-funded studies. The first (R21/AI-122996) assesses barriers to and facilitators of uptake of non-occupational post-exposure HIV prophylaxis (“PEP”) use among Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women living in upper Manhattan and the Bronx; the goal of the study is to inform the development and evaluation of a social and print media campaign to drive demand for PEP. The second, a randomized, controlled clinical trial (R01/DA-038108), assesses the impact of a behavioral intervention on uptake of consistent HIV self-testing among young, Black MSM and transgender women. Dr. Frye recently completed work on a NIMH-funded study (R21/MH-102182-01) to design and test a community-level anti-HIV stigma and homophobia intervention, Project CHHANGE (“Challenge HIV Stigma and Gain Empowerment”). She is a co-investigator on three additional NIH-funded studies, including another RCT on HIV testing among MSM (1R01/HD-078595-01), an observational mixed methods study examining neighborhoods influence on HIV among MSM (R56/MH-110176), and an RCT of an intervention to increase blood donation among young first-time donors (1R01/HL-127766). In 2006, Dr. Frye received a mentored career development award from NIDA (K01 DA-020774) and her research has been published in JAMA, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, JAIDS, AIDS and Behavior, AIDS Care, Violence against Women, Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and the Journal of Urban Health, where she serves as an Associate Editor.

Learn more here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/victoria-frye

Amr Soliman, M.D, Ph.D

Robert Chamberlain, PhD

Noel Manyindo, M.D

Victoria Ngo, PhD, MS

Erica Lubetkin, MD

Tashuna Albritton, Ph.D

Chloe Teasdale, PhD, MPH

Terry Huang, PhD, MPH, MBA

Ghada Soliman, MD, PhD

Victoria Frye, DrPH