Somdat Mahabir, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Program Director, Modifiable Risk Factors Branch
Contact Information
Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program
Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
National Cancer Institute
6130 Executive Blvd., Rm. 5133, MSC 7393
Bethesda, MD 20892-7393
(For express delivery, use Rockville, MD 20852)
telephone: (301) 451-9414
fax: (301) 435-5477
e-mail: mahabir@mail.nih.gov
Interest Areas
Understanding how genetic variation modifies the relationship between nutritional factors and cancer risk, early life exposures, obesity and energy balance in cancer, and methodological issues in nutritional exposure assessment.
Degrees
Ph.D. – Nutrition
New York University
M.P.H. - Epidemiology
New York Medical College
M.S. - Clinical Nutrition
New York Institute of Technology
Biography
Dr. Mahabir is a Nutritional Epidemiologist and Program Director in the Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program's (EGRP) Modifiable Risk Factors Branch (MRFB). His responsibilities include the scientific management of a research portfolio that focuses on modifiable cancer risk factors, such as diet and nutrition, alcohol, physical activity, and energy balance. He also has an adjunct research appointment in the Genetic Epidemiology Branch in NCI's intramural Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG).
He is the scientific contact for NCI's Funding Opportunity Announcements for Studies of Energy Balance and Cancer in Humans and is the EGRP representative to the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) initiative for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC).
Prior to joining EGRP in 2009, Dr. Mahabir was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He also was an Associate Member of the Center for Research on Environmental Disease and an Affiliated Faculty member of the Center for Research on Minority Health. Dr. Mahabir was a member of the Psychosocial, Behavioral, and Health Services Research Committee Institutional Review Board (IRB) section at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He was also a member of the American Cancer Society's (ACS) Institutional Research Grant (IRG) program and the Clinical, Translational, and Population-Based Research Projects review committees at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Mahabir has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on grants funded by NIH, the ACS-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center IRG, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Before joining the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, he was a Cancer Prevention Fellow at NCI, a Project Director with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the New York Institute of Technology.
He is the recipient of an NCI Cancer Prevention Research Training Merit Award and academic awards from New York Medical College and New York Institute of Technology.
