HICCC Community Outreach and Engagement Office Welcomes Two New Assistant Directors

The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) office is expanding its leadership with the appointment of two new assistant directors: Lauren C. Houghton, PhD, and Melissa P. Beauchemin, PhD, RN. Together, they bring complementary expertise in cancer prevention, clinical care delivery, and community-engaged research to strengthen HICCC’s efforts to reduce disparities and deepen partnerships across the communities it serves.  

Both leaders expressed enthusiasm about joining the COE office and advancing its mission under the leadership of Parisa Tehranifar, DrPH, Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement. 

“I’ve had the opportunity to work with Dr. Tehranifar in a research capacity, and I’ve long admired her leadership in community-engaged research,” says Houghton. “I’m excited to work with her in new ways through the COE and to be part of such a committed and dynamic team.” 

“The COE team has built something really special,” adds Beauchemin. “I’m excited to work with Dr. Tehranifar and this incredible group to continue strengthening the connections between our communities, our health system, and the cancer center.” 

Houghton, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, will serve as Assistant Director for Cancer Prevention and Community Engagement. Her research examines how gender, hormones, and culture intersect to shape health outcomes. She studies how exposure to internal and external hormones influence breast and chest cancer risk and how hormones can be used as biomarkers to enhance screening. 

In her new role, Houghton will help expand cancer prevention strategies through deeper, bidirectional community partnerships. 

“What I’m most excited about is true, bidirectional engagement,” Houghton says. “It’s not just about disseminating what we do or providing cancer education. It’s also about really understanding, on the ground, what people’s concerns are and what their top priorities might be.” 

With a background in anthropology, Houghton has developed mixed-methods frameworks to capture what anthropologists call the “emic” perspective”—the insider’s view. She has worked to adapt these approaches for epidemiology, creating systematic ways to integrate lived experience into prevention science and public health research. 

“I’ve been working to find structured ways to capture that on-the-ground perspective,” she says. “I’m excited to bring that to COE and help lead this next phase of community-engaged work.” 

Beauchemin, an assistant professor of nursing, will serve as Assistant Director for Clinical and Health System Engagement. Her research focuses on advancing equitable cancer care delivery for adolescents and young adults (AYAs), with particular emphasis on identifying and addressing the multilevel structural barriers that contribute to disparities in outcomes. In her new role, she will help bridge COE’s community-facing efforts with the clinical enterprise across Columbia, NewYork-Presbyterian, and affiliated ambulatory sites. 

“All of my work centers on how we can use multilevel strategies and interventions to improve care delivery,” Beauchemin says. “Patients are already moving through complex systems—screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship. The question is: how do we better connect those systems and remove barriers along the way?” 

Beauchemin has previously partnered with COE through the HICCC’s NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), a network that brings clinical trials to patients in their own communities, and other clinical trial engagement initiatives. For her, meaningful engagement requires listening as much as leading. 

“It’s not just about bringing trials to communities,” she says. “It’s about hearing from people—understanding what their needs and priorities are and asking whether these are the right trials for our community.” 

She is especially interested in strengthening provider engagement, improving navigation, and supporting survivorship transitions—recognizing that patients cycle between specialty cancer care and community-based settings. By focusing on health system coordination and removing clinical barriers, Beauchemin aims to make that trajectory more seamless and equitable. 

“These appointments represent an important investment in the future of our Community Outreach and Engagement efforts,” says Tehranifar. “Dr. Houghton and Dr. Beauchemin each bring distinct but complementary strengths—from prevention science and community-based research to clinical systems and care delivery. On behalf of the entire COE team, I am thrilled to welcome them into these leadership roles and look forward to their insight and collaboration. Their expertise will significantly enhance our ability to deepen our impact across the cancer continuum and continue building authentic partnerships that improve outcomes for the communities we serve.”