Team
Dr. Greenlee is a behavioral scientist and translational epidemiologist whose work focuses on understanding what cancer survivors can do, in additional to conventional care, to improve cancer outcomes. She is trained as a naturopathic physician and an epidemiologist. To date, the majority of her work has focused on breast and colorectal cancer, with a specific interest in Latina breast cancer survivors. She uses both clinical trials and observational studies to examine the effects of a wide range of behaviors on cancer outcomes, including dietary change, physical activity, weight loss, and use of integrative therapies (e.g., acupuncture, botanicals, vitamins/minerals, mind-body approaches, etc.). She leads single and multi-site clinical trials and is an active member of SWOG, a National Cancer Institute Clinical Trials Cooperative Group. Dr. Greenlee has a strong interest in developing methodological innovations to study the effects of integrative therapies in observational studies and clinical trials. Dr. Greenlee's work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and foundations. Dr. Greenlee completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer prevention at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer prevention and control at Columbia University, funded by the NCI. She has served on NCI and NCCAM grant review committees and is a Past President of the Society for Integrative Oncology.
Amanda Marin-Challom, MA | PhD Candidate
Amanda is the project coordinator for two studies in our lab: Mi Vida Saludable and Microbiome Exercise Tracking study. She is also a 5th year doctoral candidate in the Health Psychology & Clinical Science (HPCS) at the Graduate Center, City University of New York under the mentorship of Dr. Tracey Revenson. She is currently working on her dissertation "Latino/a adolescents coping with parental cancer within a cultural context.” She received her BA in psychology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and MA in psychology from San Diego State University. She is overall interested in studying chronic illness health disparities based on age, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity and the psychological manifestations of illness.
Zaixing Shi, MPH | PhD Candidate
Zaixing Shi is a PhD candidate in epidemiology at Mailman School of Public Health. He’s broadly interested the impact of lifestyle factors on the onset and management of chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. Currently, his research is focused on the use of lifestyle interventions, and complementary and alternative medicine to support cancer survivorship. He is working as a data analyst in Dr. Greenlee’s research group for a number of randomized controlled trials and population-based observational studies. He received extensive training in epidemiology and biostatistics, and interested in applying novel statistical methods to research. Zaixing graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine degree from Sichuan University in China, and a Master of Science degree in epidemiology from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He received a predoctoral fellowship from China Scholarship Council to support his doctoral training at Columbia.
Rachel Paul, MS, RD | Pre-doctoral Fellow
Rachel is a doctoral fellow and public health dietitian in the Department of Health & Behavior Studies at Teachers College Columbia University, and is interested in nutrition communications and weight-related effects. As a research assistant for Dr. Greenlee in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, she is examining how electronic and classroom-based education can influence diet and activity behaviors among cancer patients and survivors. Rachel is also involved in multiple studies examining social environments and weight management at Teachers College. Rachel serves on the local and national levels in various societies including the Society for Nutrition Education & Behavior and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Rachel graduated from Case Western Reserve University with her master’s and bachelor’s in Public Health Nutrition.
Kathleene Ulanday, MPH, CPH, | Doctoral Student
Kathleene is a first year doctoral student who has recently joined Dr. Greenlee's team. Born and raised in Long Beach, CA, she received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the University of California, San Diego and a M.P.H. from San Diego State University's Graduate School of Public Health. Prior to starting the doctoral program, Kathleene was a Cancer Research Training Award Fellow at the National Cancer Institute in the Office of the Director of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. For her doctoral work, she is interested primarily in cancer control and prevention research, with a focus on health disparities. Her goal is to better understand the social, environmental, and biobehavioral factors, including the cultural and historical contexts, associated with cancer among vulnerable populations across the lifecourse. Her current public health agenda and its trajectory are empirically oriented, experimentally grounded, and concerned with justice.
Corina Aycinena, MS,RD | Doctoral Student
Corina is a PhD Candidate in Behavioral Nutrition with an emphasis in Nutrition Epidemiology at Teachers College, Columbia University. As a dietician and nutritionist, she is interested in our diet’s impact on preventable diseases such as cancer and other chronic diseases. Originally from Guatemala, she received her Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and her Master of Science from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was been working under mentorship from Dr. Greenlee since 2010 and is currently working on her dissertation related to nutrition and cancer prevention in Hispanics in the U.S.
Kathleen Sanders, FNP-BC, MPH | Integrative Nurse Practictioner
Ms. Sanders is board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner through ANCC, has a master's degree in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University with a focus in medical anthropology, completed a Fellowship in the Program for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona and is a Bravewell Collaborative Fellow. She is trained and is an experienced practitioner of Peggy Huddleston’s Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster™ program. Kathleen is trained in Clinical Hypnosis with the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, as well as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center Jon Kabat-Zinn program and Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT). Kathleen believes that offering an Integrative Health approach to care puts the patient at the center and addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect a person's health. Employing a personalized strategy that considers the patient's unique conditions, needs and circumstances, integrative health helps people to become aware effective options for treatment and self-care that they can utilize to regain and maintain their optimal health.
Zelda Moran, BA | MPH Candidate
Zelda is a public health masters student in the department of Epidemiology focusing on a certificate in Infectious Disease, planning to graduate in 2017. Zelda finished a degree in Environmental Health at McGill University in 2015, and has since worked on research in vector borne diseases in Panama and Austria, and on maternal health in Uganda and South Africa. Zelda has been assisting Dr. Greenlee in an administrative and writing capacity, and contributed to the recent clinical update on Natural Products for Cancer Prevention, published in Seminars in Oncology Nursing. She has a particular interest in the intersections between infecious and chronic disease epidemiology, and the role that viral infections and fungal contaminants like mycotoxins play in global cancer epidemiology.