Dr. Sarah Nechuta is an Associate Professor for the Master of Public Health program at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). She received her PhD in Epidemiology from Michigan State University and her MPH with a concentration in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. She also received a BS in Lyman Briggs Human Biology, with an additional major in Interdisciplinary Studies in Health and Humanities from Michigan State University. She completed a perinatal epidemiology fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during her doctoral training. Following her PhD, Dr. Nechuta completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in nutritional and cancer epidemiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she was awarded Postdoctoral Fellow of the Year. She was also an NIH loan repayment award recipient for clinical research (2012-2015).  

Dr. Nechuta teaches Public Health Epidemiology and several epidemiology emphasis courses, including Advanced Quantitative Research Methods in Public Health, Cancer Epidemiology, Women’s and Children’s Epidemiology, and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. One of her passions is teaching students how to use data to design and conduct impactful data analyses for public health research and practice. In 2021 and 2024, she was awarded the Graduate Student Association Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award at GVSU. In 2023, she was awarded the Graduate Student Association Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award at GVSU.

Dr. Nechuta is a leader, collaborator, and mentor in epidemiologic methods, scientific writing, and public health research. Her expertise spans cancer epidemiology, breast cancer survivorship, injury epidemiology, epidemiologic methods, perinatal epidemiology, and women’s health. She has led numerous epidemiologic data analyses using diverse data sources, including large-scale cohort studies, case-control studies, data linkage studies, administrative data, and complex survey data. Her work has resulted in over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications in international journals (http://tiny.cc/SarahNechuta).

Dr. Nechuta is the Editor of the Michigan Journal of Public Health (https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mjph/). She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. She is a member of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, the American Public Health Association (APHA), and the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists. She is a board member of the Michigan Public Health Association (https://mipha.org/) and serves in APHA Leadership.

Return to faculty for Public Health, M.P.H.