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2018 Alumna of the Year
Congratulations to the 2018 SPHIS Alumna of the Year, Avonne Conner, PhD, MPH 
Click to view a Q&A with Dr. Avonne Connor
Avonne is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Epidemiology/Cancer Epidemiology with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine.
Avonne currently teaches a class in Etiology, Prevention and Control of Cancer. Her research interests are breast cancer, cancer survival, tumor phenotype, chronic inflammation, polymorphisms/genetic variants, health disparities, ethnicity and race, obesity, Hispanic and African Americans, and quality of life.
Avonne received her undergraduate degree from the University of Louisville in 2005. She went on to complete her graduate studies at the UofL School of Public Health and Information Sciences. She earned her Master of Public Health (MPH) in 2007 and was a member of the first MPH graduating class. In 2011, Avonne completed her Ph.D. in Public Health Sciences - Epidemiology. During this time she was the first doctoral-level “Komen Scholar” in the Disparities in Breast Cancer Epidemiology Training Program, which gave her first-hand experience with study design, data collection, lab assays, data management, and quantitative statistical skills and procedures.
"Avonne is one of the finest graduates of SPHIS to date. She is highly intelligent, very hard working, straightforward, modest, honest, and well-liked by her peers and students. Avonne is rapidly emerging as a nationally recognized scientist investigating women's health disparities."
-- Dr. Richard Baumgartner, Chair and Professor
Avonne served as a Post-Doctoral Associate in the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health for three years (2011-2014), during which she published several peer-reviewed journal articles based on her dissertation in high impact journals including Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Cancer Causes and Control, Molecular Carcinogenesis, and Annals of Epidemiology.
Avonne was inducted into the the Delta Omega Honor Society/Beta Pi Chapter in 2012, and received the Ho-Ching Yang Memorial Faculty Award from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014.
Avonne is an active member in the American College of Epidemiology and American Association for Cancer Research. She lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
"I have known Avonne since she entered the school’s first cohort of MPH students in 2005. Her original and significant peer-reviewed publications have provided a solid contribution to our knowledge on ethnic disparity for breast cancer risk and survival. Avonne has always demonstrated a strong commitment to her alma mater, an uncompromising work ethic, driving perseverance, and focused effort on her research in the area of cancer that affects women. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work closely with an individual who exhibits a strong sense of ethics, leadership qualities, a clear and direct communication style, and who interacts easily and professionally with students, peers, and collaborators."
-- Dr. Kathy Baumgartner, Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs
