The Global Cancer Program at UCSF’s HFDCCC has awarded fellowships to three early-career professionals for the 2017-2018 academic year.
Dharma Bhatta, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Community Medicine and Public Health at Tribhuvan University, People’s Dental College, Kathmandu, Nepal where he leads a dynamic research team which conducts multidisciplinary research on non-communicable disease, infectious disease, reproductive health, statistical modeling, outcomes and health system/operations research, and tobacco epidemiology. During the fellowship period Dr. Bhatta will work at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education mentored by Stanton Glantz, PhD. His fellowship is funded jointly by an NIH grant and the UCSF Global Cancer Program. Dr. Bhatta will pursue studies on the use of tobacco industry documents, understanding tobacco industry behavior and how it influences tobacco control policy including the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), determinants and economic impacts of tobacco use.
Michael Mwachiro, MBChB, is a surgeon at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya with expertise in the early detection, surgical treatment and palliation of esophageal cancer. He successfully carried out the first endoscopic screening for esophageal cancer with Lugol's chromoendoscopy in Africa. Dr. Mwachiro is also a recipient of the GloCal Health Fellowship which provides aspiring global health researchers with outstanding interdisciplinary education and training in innovative research designed to improve health for populations around the world. This career development fellowship is jointly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center (FIC), the GloCal Health Fellowship Consortium, and the Global Cancer Program. Dr. Mwachiro will investigate the molecular determinants of esophageal cancer in Kenya as part of a larger collaboration to investigate the high incidence of this disease along the eastern corridor of Africa.
Rebecca (Becky) DeBoer MD, MA is a fellow in medical oncology at UCSF pursuing a career in global oncology. Dr. DeBoer received her joint MD and MA in Medical Humanities and Bioethics from Northwestern University, and her master’s thesis was titled The Ethics of Global Cancer Care and Control. She completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Chicago and a fellowship at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. During her medical training, she studied clinical research ethics in Mumbai, India and pursued clinical oncology rotations in Kampala, Uganda, and Nigeria. Before her fellowship in medical oncology, she worked as an oncology clinician at the Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence in northern Rwanda with the organization Partners In Health/Inshuti Mu Buzima. The UCSF Global Cancer Fellowship will support her study of cancer care delivery in East Africa.
