Holly Wolf, PhD, MSPH

Profile picture of Holly Wolf, PhD, MSPH

Policy Action Task Group Co-Chair

Dr. Holly Wolf is Director of the Colorado Colorectal Screening Program and principal investigator, project epidemiologist and/or project manager for several research and public health service programs focused on cancer prevention and control at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the School of Public Health. She is an assistant professor in Community and Behavioral Health and a full member of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center.As a past Chair for the Colorado Cancer Coalition and a current executive committee of the Coalition as well as a member of the Colorectal Task Force and Surveillance and Evaluation Subcommittee she remains active both at the state and anational level. For the past several years, she has provided leadership to increase colorectal screening rates in Colorado by collaborating on CDC funded research interventions to increase public awareness using telephone based or mail based education messages in partnership with a managed care organization, with several health care providers and with insurers, assisting with capacity studies, by participating in the Colorado Colorectal Task Force to foster a comprehensive approach to colorectal screening, and most recently by establishing the statewide endoscopic colorectal screening program for the medically underserved.

She is also the University of Colorado’s Principal Investigator for Colorado’s award for the CDC Colorectal Cancer Control Program. She chairs the national state colorectal screening program network with three co chairs. Other research activities include those at the Specialized Center of Research Excellence in Lung Cancer to identify biomarkers to predict lung cancer risk and the CDC sponsored population based CONCORD/Patterns of Care study to assess the quality of stage and treatment data in cancer registries, ascertain delivery of care for breast, prostate and colon cancer and explain differences in cancer survival between Europe and North America.

Holly received a BA in Biology from Wellesley College, her M.S. and PhD in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin, and her MSPH from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She has 18 years experience in drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry as a research scientist, director of research and project manager. She joined the Department of Preventive Medicine & Biometrics at UCHSC and the cancer prevention and control effort in Colorado in 2001.