Mentor - Ana Navas-Acien, MD, MPH, PhD

Ana Navas-Acien is a physician-epidemiologist (MD, University of Granada, Spain '96) with a specialty in Preventive Medicine and Public Health (Hospital La Paz, Madrid '01) and a PhD in Epidemiology (Johns Hopkins University '05). Her research investigates the long-term health effects of environmental exposures (arsenic and other metals, tobacco smoke, e-cigarettes, air pollution), their interactions with genetic and epigenetic variants, and effective interventions for reducing involuntary exposures. She collaborates with major cohort studies such as the Strong Heart Study, a study of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors in American Indian communities, and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a study of cardiovascular, metabolic and lung disease in urban settings across the US. Both in the US and internationally, she evaluates exposure to tobacco smoke including emerging public health challenges such as waterpipe smoking and e-cigarettes. Her goals are to contribute to the reduction of environmental health disparities in underserved and disproportionately exposed populations.