Early-Career Investigators to Speak on Disease Prevention
NIH’s Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) will host a week of Early-Stage Investigator Lectures (ESIL) featuring the 2025 awardees, Drs. Nilay S. Shah, Julia Chen-Sankey and Michael Fang. Each will focus on a different prevention topic: cardiovascular disease, e-cigarette use and type 1 diabetes. Each lecture will take place via webinar, with Shah and Chen-Sankey presenting at 10:00 a.m. ET on June 4 and 5, respectively, and Fang presenting on June 6 at 2:00 p.m. ET.
This lecture series recognizes early-career prevention scientists who are poised to become future leaders in prevention research.
On June 4, Shah—an assistant professor in the departments of cardiology, preventive medicine and medical social sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine—will outline the science of cardiovascular disease prevention among Asian American populations.
Shah, who also is a general and preventive cardiologist in the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, will discuss the epidemiology of cardiovascular health across disaggregated Asian communities, characterizing upstream social and structural factors that influence cardiovascular disease risk in these groups. He’ll also share evidence for adapted clinical and community-based prevention interventions that build on the unique characteristics of Asian populations.
On June 5, Chen-Sankey—an assistant professor in the department of health behavior, society and policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health—will share her research findings on young adults’ responses to various e-cigarette marketing features, alongside their perceptions and intentions related to e-cigarette use shaped by these promotional elements. She also will discuss the broader implications of these findings, highlighting opportunities for developing impactful policies and public health interventions aimed at reducing ecigarette-related harms among young people.
Fang, presenting on June 6, will draw on emerging evidence from national health surveys and large electronic health record databases to describe the modern epidemiology of type 1 diabetes in the U.S. Fang— an assistant professor in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and core faculty at the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research—will highlight areas of progress and emerging challenges in managing type 1 diabetes, with a focus on glycemic control, obesity and access to new diabetes technologies.
To register for each lecture, visit https://go.nih.gov/WYLfSir. The lectures will be recorded and available on ODP’s website a few weeks after each session.