Elizabeth Terrell Hobgood "Terry" Fontham is an American cancer epidemiologist, public health researcher, and founding dean of the

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans is a public university focused on the health sciences and located in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is part of the LSU System and is the home of six schools (including one of two LSU ...

School of Public Health.

Education

Fontham received her undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University, her MPH in Epidemiology from the Tulane University School of Public Health in 1978, and her doctorate in Public Health Epidemiology in 1983, also from the Tulane University School of Public Health.

Career

Fontham became the associate director of cancer prevention and control at the Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center at Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1996. Also that year, she became a professor of pathology at the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. From 1998 to 2003, she was chairman of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center's Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and remains a professor in this department. She is also the founding dean of the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health. She directed this department's epidemiology program from 2003 to 2004. In 2008, she was named president of the

American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. Established in 1913, the society is organized into six geographical regions of both medical and lay volunteers operating in more than ...

, becoming the first non-physician to hold this position in the organization's history. Prior to this appointment, she served as a member of the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Counselors.

Research

Fontham is known for her research in cancer epidemiology, such as the link between tobacco, diet, and cancer. For example, she led the first case-control study in the United States that found that

passive smoking Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called secondhand smoke (SHS), or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by persons other than the intended "active" smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke enters an environment, causing its inhalat ...

increased the risk of lung cancer. The tobacco industry responded by trying to gain access to the raw data from the study from University of Southern California researchers in court so as to cast doubt on its results.

Honors and awards

Fontham has received the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Tobacco and Health, the C.L. Brown Award for Leadership Excellence in Tobacco Prevention; the Leadership and Distinguished Service Award of the

American College of Epidemiology The American College of Epidemiology (ACE) is an American organization incorporated in 1979 to support and promote the work of American epidemiologists. It is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Members of the American College of Epidemiology are p ...

; and the

Pfizer Award The Pfizer Award is awarded annually by the History of Science Society "in recognition of an outstanding book dealing with the history of science" Recipients * 1959 Marie Boas Hall, ''Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry'' (New York: ...

for Excellence in Research, Education and Patient Care.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontham, Elizabeth Louisiana State University faculty Cancer epidemiologists Living people American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Louisiana State University alumni Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine alumni American Cancer Society people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) American women academics 21st-century American women