Marissa Shams-White, PhD, MSTOM, MS, MPH

Senior Principal Scientist
Population Science

What Motivates Me

Every day, we all need to eat, move, and sleep. The quality of, and time spent in, each of these activities can impact our long-term health. I think it’s important that we better understand these lifestyle behaviors, including how they’re related, what factors influence them, and how we can support behavioral and environmental changes to promote health and prevent cancer.”

At ACS since 2024

As a Senior Principal Scientist, Marissa Shams-White, PhD, MSTOM, MS, MPH, oversees diet assessment initiatives and dietary database management in the Population Science department at the American Cancer Society (ACS). She also collaborates and advises internal and external colleagues on dietary analyses in the Cancer Prevention Study (CPS) cohorts. Her training is in nutritional epidemiology, and her research focuses on the assessment of diet quality, dietary patterns, and modifiable lifestyle factors and how they may individually and jointly impact risk for obesity, cancer, and mortality.

Research focus and accomplishments

My primary research areas include examining the association between modifiable lifestyle factors – including diet quality, dietary patterns, meal timing, and sleep – and risk of obesity and cancer across the cancer continuum. A key interest of mine is to better understand how food insecurity, nutrition security, and health disparities can impact these lifestyle factors and risk.

I also have a strong interest in survey and index development to assess alignment with diet and other modifiable lifestyle factor guidelines to better understand their integrated impact on cancer risk. While at the National Cancer Institute, I led the development of the 2018 World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) Score and collaborated on the development of the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2020 and HEI-Toddlers-2020.

Previously, I studied Traditional Oriental Medicine and was a licensed acupuncturist. After transitioning careers to pursue training in nutritional epidemiology and prior to joining ACS, I was a Cancer Prevention Fellow and Program Director at the National Cancer Institute in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. I supported work in dietary patterns, diet and sleep assessment, measurement error, 24-hour behavior patterns, systems epidemiology, and obesity policy research.

Publications

For a full list of Dr. Shams-White’s publications, visit her Google Scholar page.

Contact 

Work before ACS

  • Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Program Director

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellow: Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 2018-2020
  • PhD: Nutritional Epidemiology, Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, 2015-2018
  • MS: Nutritional Epidemiology, Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, 2012-2015
  • MPH: Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tufts University School of Medicine, 2012-2015
  • MSTOM: Traditional Oriental Medicine, Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, 2004-2008
  • BS: Health Sciences, Ithaca College, School of Health Sciences and Human Performance, 2000-2004

Personal

I live with my family in Maryland, near Washington, DC. I love hiking, strength training, reading, and taking my kids on adventures near and far.