Co-Director, Skin Cancer Institute
Robin B. Harris is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. She earned a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Washington and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Texas at Houston. She is co-PI of the T32 Postdoctoral Training Cancer Health Disparities in Cancer Prevention and Control.
Dr. Harris has extensive experience working with community-based epidemiological studies of chronic diseases, including causes and prevention of cancer. As Co-Director of the Skin Cancer Institute, her current research priorities coincide with goals of the Skin Cancer Institute: implement an integrated patient registry-tissue bank and develop effective community messages about sun protection and early detection, including programming for Arizona youth. She is a member of the Arizona Melanoma Task Force that identified substantial under-reporting of melanoma in Arizona and continues to implement effective strategies to address this issue.
Dr. Harris also works with multidisciplinary research groups studying cancer screening and risk exposures in Arizona populations. Since 2004, Dr. Harris has been working with a university-community partnership to evaluate cancer screening efforts for Native American men and women and to implement appropriate survey methods for obtaining information for tribes about cancer risk factors and environmental exposures. Dr. Harris currently is principal investigator of the Hopi Environmental Health Project partnering with the Hopi Tribe to evaluate cumulative environmental exposures of arsenic and PM2.5. She also is principal investigator for studies of Helicobacter pylori infections for Navajo Nation communities as part of the Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP) Partnership. Recently this full research project received a COVID-19 supplement to study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic for Navajo health facilities and community members.