Jennifer Bea PhD

Dr. Bea is a physiological scientist, focused on body composition and chronic disease research, with an emphasis on cancer. Dr. Bea was an R25T Cancer Prevention and Control Fellow at the University of Arizona (UA) and, subsequently, the program coordinator for 5 years. She is currently Co-director for the Body Composition Research Laboratory and the Collaboratory for Metabolic Disease Prevention and Treatment Operations Committee Co-chair at UA. Dr. Bea is an investigator for the National Women’s Health Initiative and previously directed the University of Arizona Nutrition Network (UANN) evaluation program throughout the state. Dr. Bea is a member of the NRG Cancer Prevention and Control Committee and a reviewer for the American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant. As an expert in body composition imaging, lifestyle interventions, circulating biomarkers, and genetics, Dr. Bea has made significant strides in understanding how to tailor interventions to optimize body composition and health. Among the contributions was her investigation into weight loss in breast cancer survivors evaluating macronutrient composition, metabolic regulation, and change in body composition. More recently, Dr. Bea has begun to address cancer health disparities as PI of a physical activity intervention in the Native American Cancer Prevention Project (NCI U54).