Heather Spencer Feigelson, PhD, MPH, is a Cancer Epidemiologist and Senior Investigator at the Institute for Health Research. Dr. Feigelson has over 25 years of experience as a cancer epidemiologist with expertise in genetic susceptibility and genomics. She is committed to understanding factors that improve treatment response and survival in those living with cancer and has lead studies looking at factors associated with survival of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer and melanoma. Dr. Feigelson is also developing methods to increase appropriate genetic screening and testing for familial cancers. Much of Dr. Feigelson’s research has focused on the etiology of breast cancer. Her current work includes understanding risk factors associated with second cancers among women with breast cancer, and molecular markers that predict progression of DCIS to invasive breast cancer. She also has a long-standing interest in steroid hormone metabolism and its role in cancer etiology, and has explored many factors associated with hormonal mechanisms, including genetics, obesity, hormone replacement therapy, and the gut microbiome.

Dr. Feigelson has spent much of her career developing large, prospective studies of cancer etiology. She currently leads a consortia of four Kaiser Permanente regions (Georgia, Hawaii, Northwest and Colorado) working with the National Cancer Institute and other health plans around the country to assemble a prospective cohort that will include up to 200,000 cancer-free adults followed over several decades with serial biospecimen collection. She also serves as lead scientist for the cancer cohort that is part of the Kaiser Permanente Research Bank . The KPRB has collected over 350,000 DNA specimens from members across all Kaiser Permanente regions. She also served as co-lead of the colorectal cancer cohort developed under the PCORI Patient Outcomes Research To Advance Learning (PORTAL) Study. This cohort included survey and medical record data from over 16,000 colorectal cancer patients across 6 health plans.

Dr. Feigelson earned her Master of Public Health degree from the San Diego State University and completed her doctoral training in epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Southern California.