Maira CastanedaAvila, PhD, BS, MS

Maira Castaneda Avila is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the UMass Chan Medical School. Funded by the T32 Prevention and Control of Cancer Training for Change in Individuals and Systems (PRACCTIS) Post-doctoral fellowship. She earned a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Universidad Ana G Mendez in Cupey, Puerto Rico. After completing her bachelor’s degree, she was part of the Introduction for Cancer Research Career (ICRC) program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Later, Maira earned a MS in epidemiology at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus. She then completed her PhD in the Clinical and Population Health Research Program at the UMass Chan Medical School, Morningisde Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Maira's research interests include use of data to design and inform interventions for cancer screening and prevention within health care settings among underserved populations, with a specific focus on Latino/Hispanic and elderly populations. She has been funded by diversity supplement by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial research (NIDCR)the Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) scholarship, UMCCTS TL1 pre-doctoral fellowship and the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (F31) funded by the National Cancer Institute.