Current Fellows | Cancer Outcomes Research Program

Meet the Cancer Quality and Control Training Program Fellows

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Nicole E. Caston, PhD, MPH, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Care Quality Training Program. She is a cancer health services researcher with training in epidemiology. Dr. Caston’s work focuses on understanding challenges facing patients receiving various cancer treatments, especially cancer therapeutic clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Caston’s research interests include patient-reported outcomes, quality cancer care, and geospatial analyses. Her mentors are Drs. Stephanie Wheeler and Ethan Basch.

Victoria J. Dunsmore, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Care Quality Training Program who focuses her work on daily psychological outcomes for patients with cancer. Her dissertation focused on tracking daily coping and ‘scanxiety’ among patients with lung cancer as they approached their upcoming scans. She is currently working with Dr. Stephanie Wheeler and Dr. Katherine Reeder-Hayes to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving medication adherence among breast cancer survivors. As a fellow, she aims to combine her past work and current training to implement interventions aimed at helping survivors manage ‘scanxiety’ as they approach their upcoming surveillance scans.

Chase Cox, MD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Care Quality Training Program with a clinical focus in hepatobiliary oncologic surgery and with a research emphasis in patient-provider and systems-based communication. He hopes to explore the methods by which we may improve perioperative communication, patient outcomes, and overall experience. Dr. Cox’s prior practice as a social worker is foundational to his current research into the importance of high-quality communication in the medical encounter and the skills and tools necessary to execute difficult communication well.

Pre-Doctoral Fellows

Brittney Gedeon is a pre-doctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology, specializing in breast cancer survivorship and mortality across populations. Her research centers on the social and environmental factors that impact these outcomes. Currently, she is investigating the impact of environmental exposures and socioeconomic factors on breast cancer survivorship. Broadly, her work aims to enhance outcomes by addressing the survival and mortality gaps between women with breast cancer.

Matthew Dunn, MPH, is a predoctoral fellow in cancer epidemiology with a longstanding commitment to health services research and improvement of patient outcomes. His research addresses multiple dimensions of quality of care, including treatment timeliness, telehealth access, travel burden, and preventive health services such as screening and primary care. Methodologically, Matt’s work encompasses epidemiology, health services, and geography, and he hopes to use these methods to support community- and population-level interventions. His primary research mentors are Dr. Melissa Troester and Dr. Jennifer Elston Lafata.

Jordyn Brown, MPH is a predoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology. Her research focus is on identifying and addressing contributors to endometrial cancer outcomes across populations. Jordyn’s current predoctoral research projects are centered on the role of the socio-physical environment, physical activity, and medical comorbidities on health-related quality of life among endometrial cancer survivors. Her primary research mentor is Dr. Hazel Nichols.

Learn more about the Cancer Care Quality Training Program