UNC Lineberger’s Melissa Troester, PhD, MPH, has been elected the next chair of the American Association for Cancer Research Populations Sciences Working Group.
She will serve as chair-elect for the 2025-2026 term following the group’s town hall meeting at the 2025 AACR Annual Meeting in April and will assume the role of chair for the 2026-2028 term at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting.
“During a time of scientific flux, it is both a privilege and an important responsibility to help set the collaborative agenda for AACR population sciences research,” said Troester, co-leader of the UNC Lineberger Cancer Epidemiology Research Program. “Ensuring that all cancer patients receive optimized prevention and treatment must be an enduring priority.”
Troester is a professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. Her research focuses on biomarker development and validation, genomic and epidemiologic methods, and breast cancer. With more than a decade of experience in genomic data analysis and breast cancer biology, she has contributed extensively to understanding cancer risk and progression.
The mission of the AACR Population Sciences Working Group is to foster and strengthen team-based, transdisciplinary research to develop a more integrated understanding of cancer etiology and outcomes in human populations.