Jessie Satia, Ph.D., died at her home in Chapel Hill, N.C. on Feb. 4, 2010, after a long illness. Dr. Satia was associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She also was special assistant to the dean for diversity. Born in the state of Washington, Dr. Satia grew up in Cameroon. She returned to the U.S. and earned a bachelor of science degree in microbiology, a master of science degree in laboratory medicine, a master of public health degree in epidemiology and a doctorate in nutritional epidemiology, all from the University of Washington at Seattle.
Dr. Satia was a postdoctoral fellow and later a research assistant professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. She joined the UNC nutrition department faculty in 2002 as an assistant professor. She also became a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2002. For two years, Dr. Satia worked in the department of global epidemiology at Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, Calif. She returned to UNC in late 2005 as an assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology and special assistant to the dean for diversity. In 2007, she was promoted to associate professor, tenured in the departments of nutrition and epidemiology.
She was passionate about reducing health disparities and understanding the nature of those disparities, especially in cancer. She also was helping the school increase recruitment of diverse faculty members. During her career, Dr. Satia published more than 65 papers and authored two book chapters. Her numerous awards and honors include the Graduate Student Fellowship Award from the University of Washington and the New Investigator Award from the American Society of Preventive Oncology in 1999. In 2001, she won the Dannon Leadership Institute’s Nutrition Leadership Institute Award. She has been a three-time recipient, in 1999, 2001 and 2003, of the Minority Research Scholar Award given by the American Association for Cancer Research.
The overarching focus of Dr. Satia’s research was the association of nutrition- and diet-related factors with chronic diseases, particularly human cancers. Her primary research interests were cancer etiology, nutritional epidemiology (dietary assessment), minority participation in research studies and cancer survivorship. She conducted research to study relationships between various dietary factors (including dietary supplements) and colorectal, lung, bladder and prostate cancer risk, with an emphasis on racial and ethnic disparities. She also helped develop simple and practical dietary assessment tools that are adaptable to diverse ethnic and racial populations and in the use of nutrient biomarkers in diet and cancer research.
Dr. Satia explored various methods and strategies to recruit African-Americans into research studies for cancer prevention and control. She also assessed and monitored trends in health-related behaviors among colon- and prostate-cancer survivors and examined whether health behaviors impact cancer prognosis and survival. She served on a number of external committees that address cancer and disparity issues at the local, state and national levels. She was involved with the National Institutes of Health in the Integrative Nutrition and Metabolic Processes Program, the Health Disparity Research in Prostate Cancer Program and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. At UNC, she was a member of the Campus Partnerships for Health Committee on Recruitment and Retention of Minority Faculty of Color and the Campus Partnerships for Health Working Group on addressing health disparities.
In addition to her university and community service, Dr. Satia was a member of a number of national societies that are prominent in the cancer and public-health field, including the American College of Epidemiology, American Association for Cancer Research and the Association of Schools of Public Health’s diversity committee.
She is survived by her parents, Drs. Benedict and Philomena Satia, of Bothell, Washington and two younger sisters.
RIP aunty Jessie.