CRoFT Leaders
Richard O’Connor, PhD
Dr. Richard J. O’Connor is a Professor of Oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. He joined Roswell Park’s staff in 2004 as a Postdoctoral Fellow and was appointed Member of the Department of Health Behavior, Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences in 2015. Additionally, he serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the Cancer Sciences – Prevention doctoral program in the Roswell Park Graduate Division (University at Buffalo), Adjunct Professor of Community Health and Health Behavior, Research Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health with the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions, and Affiliated Research Scientist at the Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions (University at Buffalo).
Dr. O’Connor has authored more than 200 scientific papers on topics related to tobacco control. His program of research focuses on building the evidence base for tobacco regulatory science, with a particular focus on product-user interactions. He is a co-investigator on the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC), which is investigating the impact of national level tobacco control policies across more than 20 different countries. He is also a project director on the NCI-funded Consortium on Methods for Evaluating Tobacco (COMET), which is working to develop state-of-the art methods for assessing tobacco product abuse liability, consumer perceptions, and toxicity.
Other work focuses include: impact of tobacco policy on product use, assessment of consumer interest in novel tobacco products as substitutes for cigarettes, and the development of unobtrusive methods for assessing smoke exposure.
The Tobacco Research Laboratory, which Dr. O’Connor directs, works to characterize popular products sold on the international market in terms of physical and design features, so as to provide greater insight into user-product interactions that may affect addiction and/or health outcomes. The laboratory also houses the International Tobacco Product Repository, which is creating cohort surveillance of popular tobacco products in a number of countries.
Dr. O’Connor’s work has been published in Addiction, American Journal of Epidemiology, British Medical Journal, Tobacco Control, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention.
Background
Maciej Goniewicz, PhD, PharmD
Dr. Maciej L. Goniewicz joined the staff of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Roswell Park) in 2013 as Assistant Member of the Department of Health Behavior, Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences. In 2016, he was appointed Associate Member.
He earned a Pharm.D. degree (2002) and a Ph.D. in Toxicology and Pharmacology (2007) from the Medical University of Silesia, Poland. He completed his postdoctoral fellowships in Clinical Pharmacology and Tobacco Control at the University of California San Francisco and in Smoking Cessation Treatment in Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Dr. Goniewicz has authored over 120 scientific papers on topics related to tobacco control, biomarkers, and nicotine-containing products. His work has been published in Tobacco Control, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Pediatrics, Atherosclerosis, Critical Care Medicine, Chemical Research in Toxicology, Journal of Analytical Toxicology, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention.
