Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington
Dr. Thomas is the former head of the Program in Epidemiology and of the Seattle Breast Cancer Research Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. His research has focused primarily on studies of breast and gynecological cancers in low- and middle-income countries. He coordinated for the World Health Organization a multinational study of oral and injectable contraceptives and the risks of cancers of the breast, ovary, endometrium, cervix, and liver; and he conducted a randomized trial of breast self-examination in Shanghai, China. He has served on multiple working groups of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, and expert committees of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland; and he is a past president of the International Association of Cancer Registries. He has served as chair of the Epidemiology Committee of the National Breast Cancer Task Force of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as member of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Study Section of the NIH, on the Integration Panel of the Breast Cancer Research Program of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, and as a member of the Steering Committee for the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer, Oxford University. He currently serves on the Research Ethics Committee of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH). He has published over 250 peer reviewed scientific papers and book chapters.