Thomas C. Tucker, PhD, MPH

Professor

Thomas C. Tucker, PhD, MPH is a tenured professor in the Department of Epidemiology and the senior director for cancer surveillance at the UK Markey Cancer Center. He joined the faculty of the former UK School of Public Health as director of the Division of Epidemiology in 2000 having previously served on the UK College of Health Sciences faculty from 1984 to 2000. In 2004 he became founding chair of the UK College of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology. He was responsible for establishing the Kentucky Cancer Registry and for nearly 20 years he served as both the director of the Registry and the Markey Cancer Center's associate director for cancer prevention and control.

He is an internationally recognized population scientist with more than 45 years of experience in cancer surveillance and cancer control. He has served on numerous national and international boards and committees. In 2012 he received the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries 20th Anniversary Award for Significant Contributions in Cancer Prevention and Control, and in 2002 he received the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries’ highest honor, the Calum Muir Award, for lifetime contributions to the science of cancer surveillance. Dr. Tucker is the author or a co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. His research is focused on cancer disparities with an emphasis on rural and Appalachian populations. More recently he has engaged in research using the population-based cancer registry as a Virtual Tissue Repository. The extramural grants and contracts for which he has served as the PI total more than $37 million.