Program Director
National Institutes of Health
Dr. Marissa Shams-White is a Program Director in the Risk Factor Assessment Branch (RFAB) of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) at the National Cancer Institute at NIH. In this role, she supports work in dietary patterns; measures for diet and sleep assessment, including screeners; the emerging areas of systems science and the measurement of the 24-hour behavior pattern (including diet, sleep, and physical activity); measurement error; and obesity policy research.
Dr. Shams-White’s scientific interests include index development for lifestyle measures. She led a team of experts in the development of the 2018 World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) Score. As a nutritional epidemiologist, she is also interested in examining the association between dietary quality and obesity and cancer risk, as well as conducting methodological work related to dietary patterns.
Dr. Shams-White holds an MS and PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, an MPH from the Tufts University School of Medicine, and an MS in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine.