Karen M. Emmons, PhD

Dr. Emmons is a leader in research on community-based approaches to cancer prevention particularly for underserved populations. Among her research interests are smoking cessation and development of policy interventions related to tobacco. Dr. Emmons has conducted seminal research on reducing environmental tobacco smoke among young children from low-income families. She has also studied populations at high-risk for cancer, including childhood cancer survivors and family members of cancer patients. Her work in this area targets prevention of lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and melanoma.

Dr. Emmons provides substantial senior leadership in the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, serving on the executive committees for the Risk Reduction Program and Population Science overseeing its health communication disparities efforts.

Dr. Emmons received her Bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York in Stony Brook. She completed an internship in Behavioral Medicine at Brown University School of Medicine.