Dr Melissa Friesen

Biography

Melissa Friesen is a tenure-track investigator within the Occupational and Environmental Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.  She received her PhD (2006) and MSc (2001) from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and completed postdoctoral studies at Monash University in Melbourne Australia and at the University of California at Berkeley.

Melissa’s research focuses on methods to reconstruct historical exposure estimates for epidemiologic study of cancer and chronic diseases and the impact of those methods on the ability to detect important occupational risk factors for disease.  By using more refined and more proximal exposure measures, her research has resulted in quantitative exposure-response relationships for several exposure-disease associations in industry-based studies that have not previously been published, including straight metalworking fluids and bladder cancer incidence and wood dust exposure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  At the National Cancer Institute, Melissa extended her methods research to population-based studies to improve the transparency, efficiency, reliability, and validity of expert-based methods of exposure assessment.