Project Title: Advancing Indigenous Cancer Health Equity through a Community-Centered Framework
Position: Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution: University of California, Davis
Funding NIH Institution/Center: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Grant ID: K99MD018451
Dr. Halmai is Diné (Navajo) and a native of Phoenix, Arizona. She was inspired early on to pursue a career in cancer genomic research through summer internships at the Translational Genomics Institute also in Phoenix. Dr. Halmai completed her PhD in integrative physiology, where she functionally modeled cancer risk-associated variants by leveraging the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system in cancer cell lines. In her postdoctoral training at UC Davis, she applied these techniques to develop and characterize patient-derived models of cancer (organoids and mouse xenografts) that more accurately represent the disease among minoritized communities who experience a higher burden of cancer. During this time, Dr. Halmai realized that lack of representation of diverse communities in research participation, pre-clinical cancer models, and cancer genomic data remains an upstream driver of cancer health disparities for these communities. Now, her research works to improve representation and participation in cancer research as community-led collaborations, with a particular focus on partnering with Native and Indigenous communities to achieve cancer health equity. To this end, Dr. Halmai has been a fierce advocate of training a diverse next generation of cancer researchers. She continues to mentor high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from underserved communities, serves as co-chair of her department’s diversity, equity, and inclusion task force, and promotes indigenizing research methods for Native community health.