Speaker Biographies
Dr. Mary Ann Sens, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Mary Ann Sens, Board Certified (American Board of Pathology) Anatomic and Forensic
Pathology, has over 20 years’ experience in forensic pathology. Dr. Sens is past
president of the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME), and has served
on the Board of Directors of NAME and has NAME committee assignments of Inspection
and Accreditation, Strategic Planning, Research (Chair, ad hoc) and Education Committee,
and is an active member of several pathology organizations.
In addition to her work at UND, Sens serves as County Coroner for thirteen counties
in North Dakota and is the medical examiner for Marshall, Kittson, Lake of the Woods,
Norman, Polk, Roseau, Red Lake, and Mahnomen counties in Minnesota. In national medical
and health science education activities, Sens has previously served on the Step 1
Standard Setting Evaluation Panel for the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination)
and is currently on the Step 1 USMLE Pathology and Genetics Test Committee.
Sens has excelled in the areas of research, teaching, and service. She has published
over 110 scientific articles, written numerous national continuing medical education
modules in pathology, authored five book chapters and received sustained extramural
funding from the National Institutes of Health, Health Resources and Services Administration,
National Institute of Justice, and other non-federal entities.
Colin Combs, Ph.D.
Colin Combs received his doctoral training in Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Rochester under the mentorship of Drs. Kerry O’Banion and Paul Coleman. He studied the developmental regulation of tau phosphorylation with a focus on neurofibrillary tangle formation in Alzheimer’s disease. As a post-doctoral fellow, he worked with Dr. Gary Landreth at Case Western Reserve University, where he studied microglia interactions with beta-amyloid. He received a faculty appointment at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he is now a Professor and Chair of the Biomedical Sciences Department. He has served on numerous NIH, DoD, and VA study sections as a regular member and chair. He is currently on the editorial board of numerous journals. His work focuses on the broad areas of Alzheimer’s disease and neuroinflammation. Most recently, his lab is exploring mechanisms of immune cross-talk between the periphery and the brain in several chronic inflammatory conditions.
Cristina Oancea, Ph.D
Dr. S. Cristina Oancea is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health
at School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks,
ND. Dr. Oancea is also the lead epidemiologist for the North Dakota Statewide Cancer
Registry and the senior associate editor for the Global Epidemiology journal. She
has received her BS degree in Mathematics and Informatics from the University “Lucian
Blaga” Sibiu, Romania; two MS degrees, in Theoretical Mathematics and in Theoretical
Statistics, from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK; her PhD in Cancer Epidemiology
within Environmental Health with completed PhD Biostatistics coursework, from University
of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. Dr. Oancea has completed her post-doctoral research
work in Cancer Epidemiology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN.
Dr. Oancea has over 25 years of teaching experience and has taught a wide variety
of courses, both at undergraduate and graduate level, in mathematics, statistics,
biostatistics, epidemiology and environmental health. Her research expertise is in
the area of depression among cancer survivors and general population in the US and
Brazil. In addition, she is working on identifying potential environmental risk factors
for rare cancers.