Susan Hankinson has been a senior investigator with the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and NHS II, two long-term ongoing cohort studies of women’s health for over 20 years, and was Principal Investigator of the NHS from 2006 to 2011. Her research predominantly focuses on breast cancer etiology and prevention along with the incorporation of biomarkers into epidemiologic research.

With funding from NIH for the past 18 years, she has concentrated on lifestyle and endogenous predictors of both breast cancer risk and survival. She also is interested in determining underlying mechanistic pathways for known breast cancer risk factors, is working to improve breast cancer risk prediction models, and would like to learn more about predictors of patient uptake of currently approved breast cancer chemoprevention options.