Laura Fejerman has been appointed the new associate director of the cancer center’s Office of Community Outreach and Engagement (COE). Fejerman succeeded Moon Chen, Jr., a pioneer in cultivating cancer health equity who helped launch the COE in 2018. Chen has a long history of leading National Cancer Institute programs focused on resolving cancer health disparities in various racial and ethnic populations.
Fejerman plans to focus on health equity in the diverse populations that UC Davis Health serves. Meanwhile, Chen assumed a new role as senior advisor to the cancer center director for community outreach and population sciences. He will lead the cancer center’s innovative cancer screening initiatives with particular emphasis on the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities and members of other population groups who don’t have cancer symptoms but aren’t regularly screened for undetected cancer. Chen will also retain his focus on health disparities that disproportionately affect Asian Americans.
Through community-engaged research, shared decision-making, and mutual learning, the COE works with diverse stakeholders to address the cancer burden within diverse populations throughout inland Northern California. Fejerman will expand conversations with the community to give scientists an opportunity to receive feedback about their cancer research from diverse stakeholders.
Fejerman joined UC Davis Health in 2020, after expanding her skills as a breast cancer genetic epidemiologist and postdoctoral fellow at UC San Francisco. She earned her doctorate in biological anthropology and master’s in human biology at the University of Oxford, England. She completed her undergraduate degree in social anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Originally from Buenos Aires, Fejerman left Argentina in 1998 to study in England and arrived in the United States in 2003.
