Samson Gebreab MSc, PhD

Dr. Samson Gebreab has been a Program Director in the Diversity Training Branch of the NCI’s CRCHD since 2020. In this role, Dr. Gebreab contributes to the grant management of Feasibility Studies to Build Collaborative Partnerships in Cancer Research (P20), NCI Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research, and NCI Supplements to Promote Reentry into Biomedical and Behavioral Research Careers, and conducts analyses on research activities and funding addressing cancer health disparities and minority health.

Prior to joining CRCHD, Dr. Gebreab worked as a Mathematical Statistician at the Center for Tobacco Products, FDA. In this role, he served as the FDA's lead working group on sampling design and data analyses, data delivery for the PATH Study, and scientific reviewer for tobacco-related regulatory research projects. Prior to joining the FDA, Dr. Gebreab was a Staff Scientist at NHGRI, NIH, and served as an Associate Investigator in Genomics, Environmental and Social Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease in African Americans. While at NHGRI, his research focused on health disparities, especially in African Americans, examining the impact of socioeconomic position across the lifespan, psychosocial factors, behavioral, and neighborhood social and physical environments on health disparities and understanding the biological mechanisms contributing to racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. He was also actively involved in managing protocols and databases and mentoring summer students and postdoctoral fellows. Earlier in his career, Dr. Gebreab served as a Biostatistician/Epidemiologist of the Jackson Heart Study.

Dr. Gebreab received his M.Sc. in Geographic Information Science (GIS) from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and joint M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Statistics and Spatial Epidemiology from Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA. Dr. Gebreab completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where he studied the influence of social determinants, such as socioeconomic status, neighborhood characteristics, and psychosocial factors, on cardiovascular outcomes.