Current Members
Jessica Hartle plays a pivotal role in the Ulrich lab. Her expertise and collaborative approach ensures that the team can focus on the research while she takes care of coordinating day-to-day operations, fostering strong interpersonal relationships, and adapting to changing university policies and regulations. Jessica's efforts contribute to the overall efficiency of the lab and supports the pursuit of valuable research endeavors. Jessica earned a Master of Legal Studies in 2022.
Dr. Ilozumba is a post-doctoral fellow at Huntsman Cancer Institute as well as in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah. She received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Florida. The goal of Dr. Ilozumba’s research is to understand the molecular, genetic, behavioral, and environmental risk factors of cancer etiology and outcomes. Dr. Mmadili has conducted several cancer research projects investigating the etiology of several cancer sites including breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer and their relationships with risk factors including genetic polymorphisms, obesity (adiposity), environmental exposures, dietary supplements, physical activity, energy intake, gene, and protein expression biomarkers of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway.
Dr. Ilozumba’s current research at HCI focuses on research projects within the Total Cancer Care Study, the MetaboCCC, the prospective FOCUS consortium, and the ColoCare study. She is investigating the associations of molecular, genetic, and environmental risk factors with colorectal cancer clinical outcomes, as well as the associations between the gut microbiome and onset of cachexia in colorectal cancer patients. Dr. Ilozumba is further applying omics in her research, in particular the interplay between microRNA expressions, body composition, and inflammatory biomarkers in relation to colorectal cancer clinical outcomes. Her research also involves addressing cancer health disparities in colorectal cancer patients from underserved and vulnerable populations including racial and ethnic minorities, rural population, and early-onset colorectal cancer patients.
Mikaela is the associate director of research for Total Cancer Care and ORIEN at Huntsman Cancer Institute. She leads the Total Cancer Care team and works closely with physicians and researchers to utilize samples and data for numerous studies. She is the liaison with the ORIEN network, which includes 19 leading national cancer centers that share data and samples to accelerate cancer research. Before joining Huntsman Cancer Institute, she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Tengda is a biostatistician in the Cancer Biostatistics Shared Resource at HCI and currently a graduate student. He is majorly responsible for data management and statistical support for the ColoCare program at Ulrich’s Lab. He received both his master degrees concentrated on biostatistics from State University of New York at Buffalo. He is interested in applying biostatistics to resolve questions in population science research, particularly relates to the investigation on the association between cancer and -omics.
Dr. Ose is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah. By training she is a nutritionist and cancer epidemiologist, with prior work focusing on integrating molecular biomarkers into epidemiologic cancer research. Her research projects have spanned etiology to survivorship, including both observational research and clinical trials in colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and ovarian cancer. Dr. Ose continues to work with leaders in the fields of nutrition and cancer epidemiology (Huntsman Cancer Institute, German Cancer Research Center, International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the University of Heidelberg in Germany). She recently received NIH funding to investigate associations of the plasma metabolome with colorectal cancer risk and the impact of diet on these associations. Dr. Ose launched and chaired working groups in multiple consortia such as the NIH-funded COnsortium of METabolomics Studies (COMETS) and the METABOlomics in Colorectal Cancer Consortium (MetaboCCC). She is further working on the role of body composition, biomarkers, and cachexia in newly-diagnosed patients with colorectal cancer. Since last year she is working on a study to investigate reproductive concerns and fertility preservation in patients diagnosed with early-onset colorectal cancer.
Ildiko earned her PhD in health and kinesiology from the University of Utah in 2022. Her research is focused on objective physical activity measurements, health programs, and implementation of interventions using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. She is passionate about helping others by taking part in research, education, prevention, and early detection. Ildiko is particularly enthusiastic about creating lasting behavior changes that promote lifelong health in all aspects and minimize disparities through education. Ildiko supports the regulatory compliance in this prospective observational study of colorectal cancer. Her work at Huntsman Cancer Institute focuses on physical activity assessment, recruitment, enrollment, and collection of data for the ColoCare study. Ildiko is an Olympian, a two-time young adult cancer survivor, and an advocate for physically active lifestyles and overall well-being.
Christy has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Utah (the U) and 25 years of experience in research at the U. She is responsible for managing the daily operations of the lab, including assay establishment and onboarding of new members. In addition, she is currently analyzing inflammation biomarkers in samples from the ColoCare study on the Meso Scale Discoveries platform and takes a particular interest in heme biosynthesis.
Affiliates
Adriana Coletta is an assistant professor in the Cancer Control and Population Sciences program at Huntsman Cancer Institute and in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation in the College of Health at the University of Utah. She is affiliated with the Ulrich group. She is a registered dietitian and exercise physiologist, and her research program consists of implementing principles from exercise science and sports nutrition across the cancer continuum to improve body composition and related biomarkers linked with cancer risk and progression. Dr. Coletta joined the team at HCI and the University of Utah after completing her postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral science and cancer prevention at MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a member of the NCI’s Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Consortium and was a TREC fellow in the 2018 cohort. Dr. Coletta earned her BS in nutrition from the Pennsylvania State University and MS in nutrition (with minor in exercise science) and completed her dietetic internship at the University of Tennessee. She then worked as a pediatric dietitian at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center prior to going back to school full time to earn her PhD in kinesiology at Texas A&M University.
Dr. Hardikar is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences and an investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah. She earned her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Washington and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where she currently holds an affiliate investigator appointment. Dr. Hardikar's research is focused on molecular and lifestyle factors associated with etiology and progression of cancer. She holds a career development award from NCI to evaluate the association between clinically-diagnosed type-2 diabetes, use of anti-diabetic medications, and risk of colorectal cancer.
PhD student in Clinical and Translational Epidemiology in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah. She joined the team at Huntsman Cancer Institute in October 2015 and is now a PhD candidate. Caroline supports new patient recruitments as well as the ColoCare study organization and will perform her doctoral thesis within the study. Furthermore, she organizes the PEP study which is designed to test a personalized exercise program in lung cancer patients undergoing surgery.
Dr. Playdon is an assistant professor affiliated with the Ulrich team and a nutritional and cancer epidemiologist. She received her PhD in chronic disease epidemiology from Yale University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the metabolic epidemiology branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. The overall goal of her research is to understand the role of diet and obesity in the development and prognosis of cancer. In particular, Dr. Playdon is interested in unraveling the metabolic factors underlying dietary relationships with cancer using metabolomics, and developing dietary biomarkers to better measure diet.
Research Interests: Diet, nutrition, obesity, metabolic health, metabolism, metabolomics, colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, malnutrition, molecular epidemiology, ‘omics and machine learning, population studies, diet intervention, meal timing
Dr. Alejandro Sanchez is a native of Cali, Colombia. He is an assistant professor in the Division of Urology at the University of Utah School of Medicine and a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator. Dr. Sanchez specializes in the surgical care of patients with urologic cancers using open, laparoscopic, robotic and endoscopic techniques. His practice at Huntsman Cancer Institute primarily focuses on the multidisciplinary treatment of patients with prostate, bladder, kidney, testicular, adrenal, urethral and penile cancers.
Past and Present Interns
Elena Assmann
Elena received her master’s degree in psychology from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in 2020 and is currently a medical student in her final year at the Technical University of Munich. She is interning with the Ulrich team conducting research about the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer patients at Huntsman Cancer Institute. She also supports the ColoCare Study.
Yannick Eisele
Yannick is a medical student and a research scholar at the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Research Program at HCI. He is working in the Ulrich Group and supports the organization of the ColoCare Study. His research interests focus on the human microbiome and its associations to carcinogenesis, especially in patients with colorectal cancer.
Ellie Evans
Ellie Evans is an undergraduate student at Utah Valley University, studying physics. In May 2023, she joined the Ulrich group to work on a research project under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Ose and to work with the ColoCare team. Ellie's research focuses on cachexia in participants in the ColoCare study.
Damon Greenberry
Damon is a high school senior who worked as a Pathmaker Student with the Ulrich Group. He has an interest in the medical field and wants to major in biomedical engineering at the University of Utah. He will be graduating from East High School in 2020.
Oda is a German medical student at the Technical University of Munich joining the Ulrich Group through the LebensBlicke scholarship program. She is working on her medical doctor thesis, which focuses on tumor budding and systemic inflammation in colorectal cancer patients. She also supports the organization of the ColoCare Study.
Alison Kimball
Alison was a summer intern from Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City. She worked with the ColoCare team. She graduated from Rowland Hall in 2018.
Clara Lindley
Clara Lindley is an undergraduate honors student at the University of Utah, studying biology. In November 2020, she joined the Ulrich group to work on a research project under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Ose and to work with the ColoCare team. Clara’s research focuses on the associations between inflammation and angiogenesis biomarkers and cancer-related distress in participants in the ColoCare study.
Blake Norblad
Blake is a data visualization researcher for the ColoCare Study. He uses Tableau, a data visualization software, to create interactive graphs for the ColoCare website that can display combinations of various study cohort attributes. He earned his master’s degree in clinical research from Boston University School of Medicine.
Pauline is a German medical student in her fourth year at Technical University of Munich. As a research scholar she is pursuing her doctoral thesis project (MD) at HCI supported by the LebensBlicke scholarship program. She is also working in the Ulrich Group and supports the organization of the ColoCare Study. Her research interests focus on systemic inflammation, cachexia and their associations to colorectal cancer.
Simon Ta Van
Simon is a medical student in his final year at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He is conducting a year of research at Huntsman Cancer Institute for his medical doctorate degree on the topic of body composition and its effects on colorectal cancer. In addition, Simon is assisting the study coordinators with the daily tasks of the ColoCare study.
Lia Whisenant
Lia is an undergraduate pre-medical student at Brigham Young University, studying anthropology. She joined the ColoCare team in May of 2023, working on research concerning early and late onset rectal cancer under the direction of Jennifer Ose.
Candace Winterton
Candace Winterton joined the Ulrich Group in September 2018. Her primary focus was on health disparities in underprivileged populations, including the increased cancer risk in individuals experiencing homelessness. She was also involved with the ColoCare study.
Former Lab Members
Anjelica Ashworth earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in marketing from Southern Utah University. During her undergraduate studies, she was involved in various research projects relating to psychology. Anjelica was a clinical research coordinator for the ColoCare Study and was responsible for patient recruitment and enrollment. She managed specimen and data collection with the ColoCare participants.
Macy Barrios
Macy was a program manager for the Total Cancer Care study. She manages the ORIEN Avatar project, an initiative in which paired tumor and germline samples are submitted for whole exome sequencing to produce data for the ORIEN network's vast collective of investigators and physicians. She is currently pursuing a master’s in clinical research and holds a bachelor of science in health, society, and policy from the University of Utah. Prior to clinical research, she served a full term of service in AmeriCorps and worked extensively in the community with individuals experiencing homelessness, HIV/AIDS, and severe mental health diagnoses. In her free time she enjoys running, reading, hiking, writing DnD campaigns, and being an overly enthusiastic dog mom.
Juergen Boehm, MD
Dr. Böhm is a research physician who received his MD from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany in 2010. Before joining the Division of Population Sciences at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in 2015, he worked at the Division of Preventive Oncology at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg, Germany. He has a strong expertise in epidemiological research and conducting clinical and population-based studies. Currently, he is working at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.
Stefanie Brezina
Stefanie is a PhD candidate at Medical University of Vienna – Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). She was a visiting student for 3 months with the Ulrich Group working on the MetaboCCC and FOCUS studies.
Cristina was a program manager for the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) Total Cancer Care (TCC) program. She came to HCI from the Department of Pediatrics, where she was a project manager for the Utah Trial Innovation Center. Prior to that, she worked with Population Sciences at HCI, where she managed and oversaw the Pediatric Cancer Biobank for more than three years. Previously, she worked as a research coordinator on the Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry and the National Children’s Study, where she valued her interaction with study participants. Cristina grew up in East Los Angeles, California and has lived in Germany and New York City before moving to Salt Lake in 2012 to work and study at the University of Utah.
Mahmoud Delphan
Mahmoud completed his PhD in the department of Exercise Immunology, Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department and Faculty of Humanities at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. He was a visiting scholar for one year with the Ulrich Group working on the ColoCare and PEP studies, and is now an assistant professor at the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran.
Rebekah Ess, BS
Rebekah has a bachelor’s degree in health, society, and policy from the University of Utah and is currently in the Master of Science Public Health program. She has been involved in research for five years and her main interest is in epidemiology. Rebekah was a research assistant for the ColoCare study.
Cooper Field
Cooper was an MD student at the University of Utah while with the Ulrich group.
Marissa Grande
Marissa is a student research assistant for the ColoCare study. She is an undergraduate pre-med student at the University of Utah, majoring in communications and minoring in chemistry. She plans on attending medical school in the Fall of 2020.
Andreana N. Holowatyj, PhD, MS
Dr. Holowatyj graduated in 2017 with her PhD in cancer biology and a graduate certificate degree in public health practice from the Wayne State University School of Medicine and Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, Michigan. She received many awards during her doctoral tenure, in which her translational research focused on the intersection of molecular epidemiology and basic science experiments to study the complexities of cancer.
At Huntsman Cancer Institute, Dr. Holowatyj was the 2019 Susan Cooper Jones Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Cancer Research; a recipient of a National Institutes of Health/National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH/NHGRI) T32 Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship in Genomic Medicine; and recently earned a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Investigation from the University of Utah School of Medicine.
The focus of her research is to elucidate the molecular underpinnings of young-onset sporadic colorectal cancer using data from ColoCare, FOCUS, MetaboCCC, and other international consortia. She aims to decipher how energy balance and tumor-adipose tissue crosstalk impact gastrointestinal cancer risk and/or outcomes, and to explore the roles of folate one-carbon metabolism and NSAID/aspirin pharmacogenetics in colorectal cancer risk. Dr. Holowatyj is now assistant professor of medicine and molecular cancer epidemiology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Imani is an undergraduate student at Howard University interning with the Ulrich team through the 5 for the Fight Cancer Research internship. She plans to obtain an MD/MPH after completing her undergraduate studies in May 2025. Her interests are maternal and pediatric health and public health research. She joined the Ulrich team in May 2023, working on a research project under the mentorship of Dr. Mmadili Ilozumba, and worked with the ColoCare team to prepare a literature review on the gap in the literature of the reproductive concerns for colorectal cancer patients.
Rama Kiblawi
Rama Kiblawi was a visiting scholar in the Ulrich Group and was in her last year of medical school at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Prior to joining the Ulrich team, she worked at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, for her MD thesis. Her research project focused on the correlation of one-carbon metabolites with inflammation and angiogenesis related biomarkers among colorectal cancer patients within the ColoCare Consortium.
Litty Koshy, MPH
Litty was born in New York but moved to Texas where she received her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Texas. From there, she had the opportunity to work at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she was introduced to public health and studies involving health behaviors and their link to genetics and social/psychological factors. This eventually led her to getting her MPH in social and behavioral sciences from the University of Florida. She worked as a study coordinator for the HCI-Total Cancer Care SUPPORT study.
Hanna Omar-Payne, BS
Hanna received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Utah in 2016. Prior to joining the Ulrich Lab, she worked as a research assistant in the Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury unit of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She was the study coordinator for the Total Cancer Care SUPPORT Study, and was primarily responsible for participant recruitment, enrollment, and data collection.
Dominik Ose, DrPH, MPH
The focus of Dominik’s scientific career was on the development, implementation and evaluation of complex health services interventions. He is a public health scientist by training with a post-doctoral qualification (called “Habilitation”) as health services researcher. As Director for Scientific Implementation Projects at the INFOPAT Project (2011-2015; www.infopat.eu), he has overseen the development and implementation of a broad range of different health care concepts including an electronic personal health record for patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer or a primary care based case-management approach. In the recent years, his work is increasingly in the context of cancer care (e.g., survivorship in colorectal cancer patients, end of life care of lung cancer patients, patient reported outcomes). In terms of research methods, he is experienced in the application of qualitative (e.g. interviews, focus groups) and quantitative methods (e.g. multi-level analysis).
Svenja Pauleck
Svenja is a fifth-year medical student at the University of Leipzig, Germany. She gained wide international research experiences in Jordan, University of Amman, and Israel, Hebrew University, during her studies. Currently, she is a scholar at the Huntsman Cancer Institute working together with Dr. Sheetal Hardikar. Her medical doctor thesis focuses on the association of telomere lengths and colorectal cancer risk/ survival. She supports the study coordinators of the Colo Care Study in their weekly tasks.
Dr. Peoples is an Assistant Professor on Research Track in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah and an Associate Member in the Cancer Control and Population Sciences at Huntsman Cancer Institute. She received her PhD in the multidisciplinary field of Biophysics with a focus in basic radiation science involving the adverse effects of ionizing radiation on DNA and proteins leading to cancer. Her postdoctoral trainings, NCI-funded R25 Cancer Control Clinical Research Training and the NIH/NCATS TL1 Population Health Research Fellowship, has been in the areas of behavioral outcomes and cancer symptom science.
Dr. Peoples is a clinical and translational researcher with a strong background and training in cancer control and survivorship, behavioral medicine, and radiation sciences. To date, her research has included observational studies and clinical trials with focus on quality of life, survival, and cancer- and treatment-related adverse health outcomes and symptoms, such as sleep disturbance and depression. At the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Dr. Peoples is currently involved with leading the research on sleep disturbance and associated symptoms in colorectal cancer patients from the ColoCare Study, an international, multisite, prospective cohort study. She is also involved with leading a research initiative of examining health outcomes and treatment toxicities in head and neck cancer patients receiving different types of radiation treatment including proton therapy. Further, Dr. Peoples is investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on socioeconomic factors, healthcare delivery, lifestyle factors, psychosocial outcomes, and quality of life in cancer patients with specific focus on vulnerable groups such as rural patients and early-onset and geriatric patients.
Natalie was a certified clinical research coordinator for the Total Cancer Care team. She received her bachelor’s degree in public health with an emphasis in epidemiology from Brigham Young University. She was the lead coordinator for the Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Acupuncture study, a collaboration between Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), College of Nursing and the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences.
Karen Salas, BA
Karen Salas joined the ColoCare Study at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in 2019 as the lead coordinator at the Utah study site. She was responsible for patient enrollment, follow-up visits, sample collection, and regulatory compliance in this prospective observational study of colorectal cancer. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish at the University of Utah and had a professional background in teaching and massage therapy prior to entering research. She has supported clinical trials in neonatology, pediatric type 1 diabetes, mindfulness-based therapies for chronic pain and opioid use, and colorectal cancer research. For her, the ColoCare Study participants provided yet another compelling example where the generosity of research participants and their families is helping us all find answers.
Elisa Santori, BSc
Elisa Santori has a bachelor’s degree in microbiology with a medical emphasis from Montana State University in Bozeman. During her undergraduate studies, she was involved in research of the microbiota and its progression to bacterial vaginosis (BV). Her previous experience as a medical assistant at a cancer research clinic sparked her interest in oncological clinical studies. Elisa was the study coordinator for the ColoCare Study and was responsible for patient recruitment and enrollment. She managed specimen and data collection with the ColoCare participants.
Jordan has a bachelor’s degree in physiology and developmental biology from Brigham Young University. Prior to joining the ColoCare study team, Jordan worked as a medical assistant/medical scribe in pediatrics and family medicine. His work at HCI is focused on recruitment, enrollment, and collection of data and specimens for the ColoCare study. He loves being with patients and hopes to attend medical school starting in fall 2024.
Kelly Stewart
Kelly received her MS RD from the University of Utah College of Health Sciences. She worked on her master’s thesis with the Ulrich lab, studying sugar intake among colorectal cancer patients and its association with systemic inflammatory markers. She received her masters in nutrition and registered dietitian (RD) credential at the University of Utah through their Coordinated Masters in Nutrition program. Prior to graduate school, Kelly received a BA in environmental studies from Mills College in Oakland, California.
Rich Viskochil, PhD
Rich was a postdoc in the Ulrich team. He received his PhD in kinesiology from the University of Massachusetts, where his dissertation work evaluated the impact of a 12-week exercise training program on diabetes risk factors in breast cancer survivors. His research focuses on the interactions between exercise, cancer and diabetes, as well as the metabolic health benefits that occur when people increase their physical activity and/or decrease their sedentary behavior.
Samantha Wise, MS
Samantha studied public health during her undergraduate education and holds a master’s degree in health promotion and education with an emphasis in integrative medicine from the University of Utah. Her research interests included educational disparities of women in Utah, health behavior and the aging process, special considerations for rural populations, and qualitative data analysis.
She worked in the field of genetic research since 2012 and previously helped enroll patients for Huntsman Cancer Institute’s REACH study which, in conjunction with genetic counseling services, focused on educating women and their families about hereditary breast/ovarian cancer to make informed health decisions. Additionally, she worked in the departments of Genetic Epidemiology and OB/GYN studying women from families with high-incidence rates of pelvic floor disorders identified through Utah Population Database pedigrees.
Samantha is worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator in the department of Cancer Control and Population Sciences for the institution's bio-banking collection protocol called HCI-Total Cancer Care.
Neli Ulrich, MS, PhD
Executive Director,
Comprehensive Cancer Center,
Principal Investigator
neli.ulrich@hci.utah.edu