Mindy Hebert-Derouen

Mindy Hebert-Derouen is a cancer epidemiologist at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), with dual expertise in cancer biology and epidemiology. Her research focuses on cancer prevention and control, particularly addressing cancer disparities through the lens of multi-level determinants, including social determinants of health. She has extensive experience in harmonizing complex datasets from electronic health records, geospatial sources, and population cohorts to study disparities in lung, breast, prostate, and liver cancers among diverse populations, especially Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and men of African ancestry.

• BS in Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University (2002)
• BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, University of Oxford (2004), as a Rhodes Scholar
• PhD in Cancer Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine (2010)
• MPH in Epidemiology, UC Berkeley School of Public Health (2014)
• Postdoctoral Fellow in Cancer Biology, Stanford University (2010)

Her research interests lie at the intersection of molecular epidemiology and public health, focusing on how environmental exposures (e.g., phthalates, BPA), hormonal factors (e.g., 27-hydroxycholesterol), and neighborhood-level socioeconomic conditions influence cancer risk and survival. She employs advanced methods in data integration and spatial analysis to examine how structural and contextual factors contribute to health inequities across the cancer continuum—from incidence to survival.

The trends in her recent publications reveal a strong emphasis on multiethnic cohort studies, particularly the Multiethnic Cohort Study, and the use of population-based data to investigate cancer disparities. Her work spans breast cancer etiology related to endocrine disruptors, lung cancer in never-smokers among understudied female populations, and prostate cancer survival disparities linked to neighborhood archetypes. These studies consistently integrate biological, clinical, and social data to provide a holistic understanding of cancer disparities.

Scientific Awards:

• Rhodes Scholarship, Rhodes Trust (2002)
• Judith A. Resnik Award, Carnegie Mellon University (2002)
• Andrew Carnegie Society Scholarship (2002)
• National Defense Science and Engineering Grant (2007–2009)
• NIH Interdisciplinary Training Grant in Regenerative Medicine (2017)
• Trainee, Integrative Molecular Epidemiology Workshop, AACR (2019)
• Invited Participant, NCI Workshop on Cancer Systems Epidemiology (2019)

Dr. Hebert-Derouen has served as Co-Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on multiple NIH-funded grants, including R01 and U19 awards, focusing on lung, liver, prostate, and breast cancers. These projects emphasize data pooling, methodological innovation, and health equity. While there is no public list of her advisees, her collaborative research involves large interdisciplinary teams and consortia. She does not appear to lead a named lab, but her work is deeply embedded in population science and public health research at UCSF. Future research directions likely include expanding the integration of EHR and geospatial data, refining neighborhood-level exposure metrics, and deepening understanding of biological mechanisms underlying social disparities in cancer.