Faculty

Bio

Sarah E. Cusick, PhD, is Assistant Professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine, a member of the public health nutrition faculty in the School of Public Health, a faculty member of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development, and a member of the University's Nutrition and Epidemiology graduate faculties. She holds a Ph.D. in Nutrition and International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her research, based in Uganda, aims to elucidate iron deficiency and infectious disease interactions, with a goal of improving the neurobehavioral development of children living in resource-poor settings. She leads an NIH-funded clinical trial that aims to identify the optimal timing of iron therapy in iron-deficient children with malaria and a study to determine the role of iron deficiency in the neurodevelopment of children exposed to HIV.

Research Summary

Research Interests
Dr. Cusick's research focuses on international maternal and child nutrition, the interaction between nutritional deficiencies and infectious disease, and the effect of these interactions on child health and long-term cognitive development.

Research Projects
Currently funded research include several NIH-funded studies: one on the effect of acute vs. delayed iron therapy in severe malaria on anemia, iron status, and neurobehavioral development in Ugandan children (PI: Chandy John, M.D.) and an investigation of red blood cell iron incorporation in severe malaria.

Bio

Cindy Im, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research in the Department of Pediatrics. She engages in multidisciplinary research that combines biological, epidemiological, and data sciences, with an emphasis on genetic epidemiology/statistical genetics methodology and cancer survivorship. She is currently leading a NIH-funded study to develop genetic risk scores that also account for the effects of cancer treatments (e.g., radiation therapy, specific chemotherapies), with the goal of improving prediction of second malignancies and cardiometabolic outcomes among long-term survivors of childhood cancer.

Bio

Dr. Kelly is a Professor of Pediatrics, the Minnesota American Legion and Auxiliary Chair in Children’s Health, and the Co-Director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. As a physiologist and clinical trialist, he has more than 20 years of experience conducting intervention studies for the treatment of pediatric/adolescent obesity and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers on this and related topics. Dr. Kelly’s research program has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2011. He is a leader in the field of pediatric obesity medicine and has been heavily involved in the development and evaluation of anti-obesity medications for adolescents and children. He is actively involved in numerous initiatives related to pediatric obesity treatment in the United States and internationally, and serves in various leadership positions within The Obesity Society.

Disclosure Statement:
Dr. Kelly engages in unpaid consulting and educational activities, as well as serves as an unpaid investigator for Novo Nordisk; engages in unpaid consulting activities and serves as an unpaid investigator for Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, and Vivus; receives donated drug/placebo from Novo Nordisk and Vivus for National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)-funded clinical trials.

Bio

Erin L. Marcotte, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research in the Department of Pediatrics. She received her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013, where she focused on environmental risk factors for childhood leukemia and Wilms tumor. She then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota with a focus on the genetic and molecular epidemiology of childhood leukemia, hepatoblastoma, and germ cell tumors. Dr. Marcotte's primary research interests are the genetic, molecular, and environmental causes of childhood leukemia and hepatoblastoma. She is also interested in understanding how maternal and early life nutrition impact childhood cancer risk. Finally, she has several ongoing projects which aim to understand cancer risk among individuals with neurofibromatosis type I.

Bio

Jenny N. Poynter, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Poynter is a molecular epidemiologist who leads a research team focused on pediatric and adolescent germ cell tumors (GCT) and myeloid malignancy. The major goals of her GCT research are to understand genetic susceptibility, epigenetic alterations and late effects of treatment, including hearing loss and neuropathy. She is also working on studies to understand how lifestyle and genetic factors influence risk of developing pediatric and adult myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Finally, she is one of the leaders of the 10,000 Families Study, a newly funded cohort study to evaluate the association between environmental exposures and hematologic malignancy in Minnesota. Dr. Poynter is the Co-Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center. Her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and the Children’s Cancer Research Fund.

Bio

Logan G. Spector's research focuses on the causes of childhood cancer with a focus on childhood leukemia, bone sarcomas, and hepatoblastoma. His work includes both traditional and genetic epidemiologic approaches. He works in collaboration with colleagues and trainees locally, nationally and internationally through the University of Minnesota, Children's Oncology Group and the Childhood Cancer and Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC). In addition, Dr. Spector collaborates with departmental colleagues in cardiology, rheumatology, and infectious diseases to study other pediatric outcomes. Dr. Spector is immediate past Chair of the Children's Oncology Group Epidemiology Committee; a former standing member of the NIH Cancer, Cardiovascular, and Sleep Epidemiology panel B study section; and an ad hoc reviewer for many journals. Currently Dr. Spector is Chair of CLIC, which pools epidemiologic studies of pediatric cancers from across the world to better ascertain their causes.
Training and experience: Dr. Spector received his PhD in Epidemiology in 2002 from Emory University, where he conducted his dissertation research on childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After a year as a National Cancer Institute-funded postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Epidemiology/Clinical Research at the University of Minnesota.

Research Summary

Childhood Cancer & Leukemia International Consortium: clic.ngo

Bio

Lindsay A. Williams completed her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Epidemiology in 2017. Her dissertation work characterized etiologic differences in the histologic and molecular subtypes of breast cancer with respect to reproductive risk factors. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota where she focused on identifying etiologic differences in histologic and molecular subtypes of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia and germ cell tumors. Her current research centers on identifying sex differences in childhood cancer risk, incidence, and survival. Specifically, she is studying sex differences in genetic risk factors for a number of childhood cancer types. She also studies the epidemiology and genetics of pediatric brain tumors.