Sharyl J. Nass, PhD

Sharyl Nass, Ph.D. is Director of the Board on Health Care Services and Director of the National Cancer Policy Forum at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Board’s activities pertain to the organization, financing, effectiveness, workforce, and delivery of health care. The Cancer Forum examines policy issues pertaining to the entire continuum of cancer research and care. For more than 15 years, Dr. Nass has worked on a broad range of health policy topics that includes the quality and safety of care, clinical trials, oversight of health research, developing biomarkers and omics-based tests to guide patient care, technologies and quality standards for breast imaging, strategies for large-scale biomedical science, and contraceptive research and development. With a Ph.D. in cell and tumor biology from Georgetown University and postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, she has published papers on the cell and molecular biology of breast cancer. She also holds a BS in genetics and an MS in Endocrinology/Reproductive Physiology, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, she studied developmental genetics and molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute in Germany under a fellowship from the Heinrich Hertz-Stiftung Foundation. She was the 2007 recipient of the Cecil Award for Excellence in Health Policy Research, the 2010 recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the National Academies, and the 2012 recipient of the Institute of Medicine staff team achievement award (as the team leader).