Cassandra Okechukwu, ScD, MSN

Co-Director
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Harvard/ Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Pre- & Post-Doctoral Educational Program in Cancer Prevention and Control

Associate Professor
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Cassandra Okechukwu, ScD, MSN, is a Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Okechukwu’s research focuses on how working conditions influence health and health behaviors. She has investigated how working conditions impact smoking behaviors, obesity generating behaviors, sleep and mental health. She is especially interested in the impact of work on the health of vulnerable populations, including low-wage workers, blue-collar and service workers, and immigrant communities and in how these communities balance work, family and health. Her interest spans both understanding how work impacts health and changing workplaces and work processes to improve health. Dr. Okechukwu is a member of the multidisciplinary Work, Family and Health Network, which implemented and is evaluating a randomized controlled work-redesign program to improve work-family stress among nursing homes employees. She serves on the internal advisory board of the Harvard Center for Work, Health and Well-being.

Before she joined the Harvard University faculty, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of California- San Francisco and the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Okechukwu obtained her Doctorate of Science (ScD) from the Harvard School of Public Health and her Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN) and Masters of Public Health (MPH) degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, respectively. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.