Fernanda Michels
Epidemiologist Dr. Fernanda Michels is applying her expertise in managing cancer data to helping improve how childhood cancer data is tracked and shared.
- Epidemiologist
- Program Manager of Data Quality and Integration, North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)
“You may dedicate your life to research, but in the end, it’s about helping people,” said Dr. Fernanda Michels. An epidemiologist and mother with friends who lost a child to cancer, Fernanda understands the crucial need to harness childhood cancer data to make progress.
“Thankfully, childhood cancers are rare,” she said, “but that means we need to share data between states or even countries to perform powerful analyses that enable us to understand more than we know now.” She’s especially interested in what her organization, NAACCR, is doing in partnership with the CCDI National Childhood Cancer Registry to help survivors. By tracking health outcomes from survivors across their lifetimes, registry data provides information about potential second cancers in survivors, which could also prepare us to help future survivors.
This work involves significant coordination, data management, and policy development, but to Fernanda, it’s worth it. “If we’re able to provide a better future for children with cancer and their families, then we’re doing our jobs,” she said.