Research Team

Michael is a preventive medicine physician and epidemiology (i.e. the study of disease patterns and causes) researcher. He currently serves as principal investigator and team leader.

Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology. Born and largely educated in New Zealand. Main academic interest is how lifestyle, particularly diet, may prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

Fayth is a biological scientist and epidemiologist. She is pioneering new efforts and studying how diet and lifestyle affect biological factors. She also seeks to enhance outreach to Black study participants and the Black community.

Karen Jaceldo-Siegl is the study’s research nutritionist. She oversees the development of diet questionnaires and the processing of diet data for use by other researchers.

Lars is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the databases that securely and efficiently store and manage all of the data from AHS participants. His computer programming undergirds the efforts of AHS researchers.

As senior statistician for the study, Andrew helps to maintain our complex dietary data, he prepares data for analysis for researchers, and he supports research analysis with his knowledge of biostatistics and skills in computer science.

Jason recently joined the team as a statistician. He comes with skills in data management and analysis and will assist in data management, dataset preparation, and support of research analysis.

Hanni helps organize and direct many aspects of the study, including communications with the many state cancer registries, budgeting and finances, and record keeping.

If you call with questions or to inform us of a change in your contact information, for example, you are likely to speak with Sonja. She communicates with study participants and processes returned questionnaires.

Barbara provides administrative support for many of our pilot projects and sub-studies. When it is necessary to reach out to participants by phone, Barbara often takes the lead.