Rate My Professor Nora Pashayan

Professor Nora Pashayan is Professor of the Epidemiology of Ageing in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. She studied biology and medicine at the American University of Beirut, epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, public health at the University of Cambridge, and medical education at the University of Dundee, obtaining her PhD in cancer screening from the University of Cambridge. She trained as a family physician at the AUB Medical Centre and in public health medicine in the East of England. Prior to joining the Department of Public Health and Primary Care in 2023, she was Professor of Applied Cancer Research and Head of the Research Department of Applied Health Research at University College London. She holds positions as Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Co-director of Cambridge Public Health, Director of Training for the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection, and academic theme lead for epidemiology in the MPhil in Population Health Sciences programme.

Professor Pashayan's research specializations encompass risk stratification and cancer screening, the natural history of cancer to inform early detection strategies, benefit-harm balance and cost-effectiveness of early detection interventions, and barriers and enablers for the implementation of evidence-based early detection interventions. She has led among the first publications in risk-stratified cancer screening and demonstrated how such approaches can improve the benefit-harm balance and cost-effectiveness of cancer screening programmes. Key publications include "Personalized early detection and prevention of breast cancer: ENVISION consensus statement" (2020, Nature Reviews Cancer), "Polygenic risk-tailored screening for prostate cancer: A benefit-harm and cost-effectiveness analysis" (2019, Cancer), and "Implications of polygenic risk-stratified screening for prostate cancer on overdiagnosis" (2015, Genetics in Medicine). Her contributions have advanced the integration of genomics into population-based screening strategies. She has received major awards including the RCGP Young Investigator’s Bill Styles Memorial award, AACR Pezcoller Foundation Scholar-in-Training award, Cancer Research UK Training Fellowship in Epidemiology and Public Health, and Cancer Research UK Clinician Scientist Fellowship.