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About Caroline
Caroline A. Thompson is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. She specializes in cancer epidemiology. Thompson earned her BA in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999, her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of California Los Angeles in 2010, and her PhD in Epidemiology from UCLA in 2013, with a dissertation on multiple bias modeling in endometrial cancer epidemiology. After her PhD, she served as an AcademyHealth Delivery Systems Science Fellow and postdoctoral researcher at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute and Stanford University from 2013 to 2014. She then progressed through faculty ranks at San Diego State University School of Public Health, from Assistant Professor (2015-2020) to Associate Professor with tenure (2020-2021), while holding adjunct positions at the University of California San Diego. Prior to academia, she worked over a decade in clinical data management for oncology trials at companies including Pfizer and Chugai Pharma USA. In 2021, she joined UNC-Chapel Hill as Associate Professor with tenure granted in April 2022. She holds additional affiliations as Full Member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Fellow of the Carolina Population Center, and Research Fellow at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.
Thompson's research examines population-level patterns and disparities in cancer screening, diagnosis, and healthcare delivery, disentangling drivers like social determinants of health, and developing big data methods—including quantitative bias analysis—for electronic health records and claims data. Her grants include NCI R01-CA-264176 as PI ("Cancer Diagnosis in the Emergency Department: Explaining Persistent Disparities," 2021-2026, $1.7M), CDC U48-DP006400 Special Interest Project as MPI ("Understanding Pathways to Earlier Diagnosis for Ovarian Cancer," 2022-2024, $500K), and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grants as MPI (e.g., "Measuring Missed Opportunities in the Diagnosis of Gastrointestinal Cancers," 2022-2023, $500K; "Characterizing Delays in Cancer Diagnosis for Underserved Populations," 2023-2024, $115K). Awards encompass NIH Loan Repayment Program (2016-2023, $85K), UCSD KL2 Career Development Award (2016-2019), UCLA Dean’s Outstanding Graduating Student Award (2013, $5K), and Delta Omega Honorary Society (2013). Select publications: "Diagnostic Timing and Ovarian Cancer Survival" (JAMA Network Open, 2026); "Unaffordable housing and cancer: novel insights into a structural driver of cancer inequities" (JNCI Cancer Spectrum, 2024); "Cancer Mortality in U.S.-Born versus Foreign-Born Asian Americans" (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 2022). She serves on the Department of Epidemiology Graduate Studies Committee.
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