Current Trainees and Alumni News
Current Trainees
Sarah Lima, PhD
Dr. Lima is an epidemiologist with an interest in how place and neighborhoods shape health. Her postdoctoral research seeks to understand how physical and social environments impact cancer on a molecular level and explore the potential for neighborhood-level interventions to improve cancer.
Brenna Mossman, PhD
Dr. Mossman is a health psychologist whose work focuses on supporting patients’ and their families’ quality of life by improving the quality of their cancer care. Her work concentrates on populations with high supportive care needs, including patients with advanced cancer and those diagnosed with cancer at young ages (i.e., pediatric and young adult populations).
Stacy Post, PhD
Dr. Post is an applied social psychologist whose research examines how weight stigma, including stigma related to GLP-1 medication use, influences cancer prevention behaviors (e.g., diet, exercise, cancer screenings) and health disparities in individuals with obesity.
Alumni News
Katarina AuBuchon, PhD (2023-2025)
As a research scientist at MedStar Health Research Institute in the Division of Palliative Care Research, I’m continuing research on understanding and promoting management of pain and symptom burden among patients with cancer. My T32 training prepared me for rigorous, transdisciplinary population sciences research in cancer that I conduct every day with clinicians and scientists at MedStar Health to reduce the symptom burden for patients with cancer. I look forward to continuing my work in palliative care research with a focus on developing and testing behavioral interventions to reduce the burden of cancer-related pain.
Danyel Smith, PhD (2023-2025)
I am excited to start a tenure-track assistant professor position in community psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, in July 2026. This position centralizes community-engaged research approaches to address socio-ecological drivers of health disparities. Extending from projects during my T32 postdoctoral fellowship, my research applies an integrative lens to address shared behavioral risk factors (e.g., diet, physical activity) that impact oral and overall health of cancer survivors, and how these behaviors may be patterned or shared within families. A primary goal of my research is to design technology-supported, behavioral interventions — using interdisciplinary and community-engaged methods — to target diet and physical activity behaviors associated with obesity-related cancer risk and survivorship. In the long-term, my program of research aims to implement evidence-based interventions into family and community settings. In addition to conducting cancer disparities research, I am excited to engage undergraduate and graduate students in and out of the classroom through teaching and mentorship.