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PhD Faculty

Students in the PhD in Public Health Sciences program have the opportunity to work with faculty participating in locally, nationally, and globally recognized research and studies on both the Danforth and Medical School campuses. Their areas of interest range from data analysis to community outreach to AI modeling for positive health outcomes. Learn more about our faculty community and how you can be a part of building a better present and future.

Browse Our PhD Faculty

Filter: Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Prevention

Peg Allen

Peg Allen

Research Assistant Professor

  • 314-935-0116
  • pegallen@wustl.edu

Peg Allen's focus is applied research to learn how best to support state and local health departments and their partnering organizations in capacity-building for evidence-based chronic disease prevention. The goal is to support public health departments in instituting management practices to support such capacity-building, including practices in leadership support, workforce development, organizational climate and culture, and partnerships.
Ross Brownson

Ross Brownson

Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Distinguished Professor

  • 314-935-0114
  • rbrownson@wustl.edu

A leading expert in chronic disease prevention and an expert in the area of applied epidemiology, Ross C. Brownson is regarded as one of the great intellectual, educational and practice leaders in the field of evidence-based public health. Brownson has a joint appointment with the university’s School of Medicine in the Department of Surgery and the Siteman Cancer Center.H e also directs the Prevention Research Center, a center that develops innovative approaches to chronic disease prevention through translational research.
Charlene Caburnay

Charlene Caburnay

Research Assistant Professor

  • 314-935-3703
  • ccaburnay@wustl.edu

For more than two decades, Charlene Caburnay has designed, developed and evaluated health communication programs at the Health Communication Research Laboratory. Such programs address a range of health issues such as cancer, diabetes, childhood immunization, and chronic disease for target populations including smokers, families at inner-city public health centers, and readers of Black newspapers.
Yin-Cao

Yin Cao

Associate Professor of Surgery, Associate Professor of Medicine

  • 314-747-3925
  • yin.cao@wustl.edu

Dr.Cao’s research group specializes in systems and translational cancer epidemiology with an overarching goal to develop precision-based cancer prevention/control strategies. Our current projects incorporate novel high-throughput technologies (genomics, microbiome, proteomics, accelerometers) into large-scale collaborative population-based/clinical studies to address provocative questions in gastrointestinal cancer prevention, including but not limited to the etiology of sporadic cancers among younger adults, the biological basis for cancer disparity, and the role of host-microbial interactions in carcinogenesis.
Su-Hsin-Chang

Su-Hsin Chang

Associate Professor of Surgery

  • 314-862-8623
  • chang.su-hsin@wustl.edu

Dr. Chang is an applied econometrician and a health economist. Dr. Chang’s research focuses on health and economic consequences of obesity and surgical treatments of obesity. Her research uses economic and econometric/statistical modeling to evaluate program and treatment effects. Dr. Chang’s research areas include treatment effect and policy evaluation; cost-effectiveness analysis; meta-analysis; and comparative effectiveness.
Graham-A.-Colditz

Graham A. Colditz

Niess-Gain Professor in the School of Medicine Chief, Division of Public Health Sciences Associate Director of Prevention and Control, Siteman Cancer Center Deputy Director

  • 314-454-7940
  • coldtizg@wustl.edu

With a longstanding interest in the causes and prevention of chronic disease, particularly among women, Dr. Graham Colditz, chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine, has evaluated numerous lifestyle factors including exogenous hormones and breast cancer risk and the development of statistical models to predict cancer risk for individuals. Other areas of expertise include implementation science and evaluation of guidelines being used in routine clinical practice.