Julia Heck

Julia Heck is a Professor of Rehabilitation and Health Services at the University of North Texas. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization. Her research focuses on lifecourse epidemiology, particularly early life exposures and their impact on later health outcomes, with an emphasis on birth outcomes and childhood cancers. She leads international studies such as the Parental Occupation and Childhood Cancer (POCC) Study and the COMPAC study, examining environmental and occupational risk factors across cohorts in Scandinavia, the U.S., and Taiwan. Collaborations include institutions like UCLA, UCSF, and the Danish Cancer Society. Her work investigates maternal health, pharmaceutical use during pregnancy, metabolomics, and industrial pollution exposure. Recent NIH-funded projects include metabolome-wide association studies (MWAS) in retinoblastoma and environmental health tracking of pediatric cancers in California.

Education:

• PhD in Epidemiology, Columbia University
• MPH in Rehabilitation and Health Services
• Postdoctoral Fellowship at IARC (WHO)

Research Interests: Lifecourse epidemiology of childhood cancers, environmental/occupational carcinogens, maternal and paternal health influences, metabolomics in cancer biomarkers, and perinatal exposure pathways. Current projects include studies on alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, air toxics and breast cancer, and Taiwan-based maternal pharmaceutical use.

Grants & Collaborations:

• NIH-funded metabolomic profiling of retinoblastoma
• Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation grant for Taiwan childhood cancer research
• International collaborations with Danish Cancer Society, UCLA, and UC Berkeley
• Multiethnic Cohort Studies

Labs/Teams: Leads multidisciplinary teams analyzing data from Danish registries, California Cancer Registry, and Taiwanese National Health Insurance Database. Active in the Childhood Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC).