Dr. McCullough was a panelist for the Forum’s discussion on Cancer and Diet.
Marjorie McCullough is a registered dietitian and a nutritional epidemiologist in the Epidemiology Research Program at the American Cancer Society. She oversees dietary assessment and analyses of dietary data in the Cancer Prevention Studies, and is leading an ongoing biomarker- and recall-based study to validate a modified dietary assessment instrument tailored to the Society’s newly enrolled CPS-3 cohort.
McCullough’s research focuses on the role of vitamin D, dietary patterns, and adherence to dietary and lifestyle guidelines in reducing cancer incidence and improving survival. She is currently on the Steering Committee of the NCI-funded, Harvard-based Vitamin D Pooling Project (VDPP) of Breast and Colorectal Cancer, a collaboration of 21 prospective cohorts with pre-diagnostic blood-based vitamin D biomarkers. In 2011, she led a study illustrating the lifesaving potential of following the ACS Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention which served as the basis for numerous other publications replicating these findings using data from other cohorts.
As an expert in diet, lifestyle and cancer, McCullough served on the Advisory Panel for the NCI Diet Patterns Methods Project, and working group evaluating the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research systematic literature review methodology, and other expert panels. She has co-authored the ACS Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines For Cancer Prevention and Survival, and works with ACS’s sister advocacy organization, Cancer Action Network, on position statements involving cancer-relevant nutrition policies. McCullough has been invited to speak at several international conferences, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Institute for Cancer Research, Experimental Biology, and at the Swedish Karolinska Institute.
McCullough received a BS degree in dietetics from the Michigan State University, an MS degree in dietetics from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and an ScD in Nutritional Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
