Heather M. Ochs-Balcom, PhD, joined the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health as an assistant professor in 2009 and was promoted to associate professor in 2016.
 
Interdisciplinary pre- and post-doctoral training in epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, statistical genetics and computational approaches in family-based and population-based research established a strong foundation on which her research developed. She studies several complex phenotypes including breast, colorectal and ovarian cancer, body composition and sleep.

She is currently working on a study of breast cancer genetics in African American families, participating in several studies in the Women's Health Initiative and the Ovarian Cancer in Women of African Ancestry consortium. She is interested in how obesity is related to cancer risk and mechanisms; her latest project is a study of follicle stimulating hormone and the development of obesity and postmenopausal breast cancer.

• PhD, Epidemiology and Community Health, University at Buffalo, 2004
• MS, Biology, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, PA, 2000
  
• BS, Biology, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, PA, 1997

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 2004-2007

• American Association for Cancer Research
• International Genetic Epidemiology Society
• American Society of Human Genetics
• American Society of Preventive Oncology
• Society for Epidemiologic Research