Dr. Tisha Moniek Felder, College of Nursing and Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Dr. Tisha Felder, an accomplished early stage investigator and joint faculty member of both the College of Nursing and the Cancer Prevention and Control Program in the Arnold School of Public Health, recently received funding for a prestigious K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from the National Cancer Institute (2015–2020). Her project will identify and test multi-level (e.g., patient, families, healthcare systems) intervention strategies to improve adherence to hormonal therapy among disadvantaged breast cancer survivors who experience excess rates of breast cancer mortality. As part of this award, she will be mentored by an interdisciplinary team of cancer disparities experts from USC (Drs. Ronit Elk, Daniela Friedman, James Hébert and Sue Heiney) and the Medical University of South Carolina (Dr. Marvella E. Ford) in Charleston.
A South Carolina native, Dr. Felder received a Master of Social Work with focuses on social policy and evaluation and community and social systems in 2002 and a PhD in behavioral sciences from the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health in Houston in 2010. After receiving her doctorate, she was awarded a PhRMA Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Health Outcomes Award (2011–2013) here at USC, with joint affiliations in CPCP and the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Science at the SC College of Pharmacy. She obtained her first faculty appointment in the USC College of Nursing in 2013.
Through her research, Dr. Felder aims to eliminate disparities and improve health outcomes among racial/ethnic and socioeconomically disadvantaged cancer survivors. “I believe that my multidisciplinary background and inter-professional research experiences place me at an advantage to tackle the complex, multi-level contexts that contribute to disparities in access and adherence to evidence-based breast cancer care,” Dr. Felder says. She also focuses efforts on mentoring junior investigators, giving them the training they need to make a difference in the fields of community and disparities research. She recently collaborated with CPCP director Dr. James Hébert and other core CPCP faculty members on a Special Issue of Progress in Community Health Partnerships to highlight the role of community-based participatory research in reducing cancer health disparities. Her K01 award will help her continue to excel in her research career and work to eliminate health disparities in our state and nation.
Dr. Jan Marie Eberth, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Dr. Jan Eberth, an early stage investigator who has already led a number of successful and high-impact research projects and is a joint faculty member of CPCP and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Arnold School of Public Health, was recently awarded a coveted 4-year Mentored Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society. During this project, Dr. Eberth will explore accessibility to colonoscopy services in North and South Carolina and examine the neighborhood-level effects of socioeconomic status and access to care on late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis rates. With her mentors Drs. Janice Probst, Lee Mobley (Georgia State University) and Mario Schootman (Saint Louis University), Dr. Eberth will focus her training on health policy development and advocacy, as well as innovative methods in medical geography and spatial statistics.
Hailing from Greenville, South Carolina, Dr. Eberth received her Master of Science in Public Health in Epidemiology from Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health in 2006 and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health in 2011. Dr. Eberth joined the University of South Carolina in 2013.
In addition to serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dr. Eberth was recently appointed Deputy Director of the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center. Dr. Eberth’s research focuses on health disparities and the access, utilization and quality of cancer screening and treatment services. She often uses geographical information systems (GIS) to highlight areas where health disparities exist and in which preventive and screening services are particularly underutilized. Dr. Eberth is especially interested in increasing detection and treatment rates of the most commonly diagnosed cancers, including lung, breast and colorectal cancer, to reduce mortality rates across the state and increase the number of cancer survivors. Her ACS Mentored Scholar Research Grant will ensure that Dr. Eberth continues to make a difference in our state, working to increase access to high-quality cancer screening and ultimately lower cancer mortality.