Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Since 2015, Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H., has served as a Program Director in the Breast and Gynecologic Cancer Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP), National Cancer Institute (NCI), managing the ovarian and endometrial cancer prevention grant portfolios. She also serves as Director of the NCI Cancer Prevention Clinical Trials Network (CP-CTNet), which supports early phase clinical trials to assess the safety, tolerability and potential of cancer preventive interventions. She also serves as scientific lead of endometrial and ovarian cancer prevention trials within CP-CTNet. Dr. Samimi’s research interests include molecular mechanisms of ovarian cancer etiology and progression, and identification of women and families at high risk for ovarian cancer.

Dr. Samimi leads the Traceback program, aimed to increase identification of families at increased risk for ovarian cancer by genetic testing of previously diagnosed cases. She also serves as Project Scientist for uterine cancer for the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET), a consortium of NCI-sponsored investigators who apply modeling to improve understanding of cancer interventions in prevention, screening, and treatment. In addition, Dr. Samimi leads studies investigating perceptions of cancer risk and decision-making regarding cancer prevention in patients and primary care physicians. Dr. Samimi also works with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to support research related to progression of benign gynecologic disease to gynecologic cancer.

Dr. Goli Samimi received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, focusing on molecular mechanisms in ovarian cancer that confer resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy. For her post-doctorate, she joined the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) at NCI, in which she completed her Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research at NCI as a CPFP Fellow focused on molecular profiling of the tumor microenvironment in ovarian cancer. Dr. Samimi then joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, as Head of the Ovarian Cancer Research Group. Her lab research focused on the development of a blood-based DNA test for early detection of ovarian cancer.