Staff: Susan Czajkowski, Ph.D.

Susan Czajkowski

Susan Czajkowski, Ph.D.

(she/her/hers)
Chief, HBRB
Organization: Contact:
czajkows@mail.nih.gov
240-276-5871

Susan M. Czajkowski, Ph.D., is Chief of the Health Behaviors Research Branch (HBRB) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She is an expert on psychosocial and behavioral risk factors for disease, including the development and testing of interventions for behavioral risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity, adverse diets, and non-adherence to medical regimens; the roles of social support and depression in disease risk and recovery; and the assessment of health-related quality of life and psychosocial functioning in patients with chronic diseases.

Prior to joining the NCI, Dr. Czajkowski was a Program Director at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, where she managed research initiatives testing of interventions to improve adherence to lifestyle and medical therapies in patient populations, including in minority patients and the medically underserved, and was project officer for the Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease (ENRICHD) Patients Study, a large, multicenter randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of treating depression and low social support on survival and recurrent events in myocardial infarction patients.

Dr. Czajkowski was also the lead project officer for the NIH-funded Obesity Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) network, a cooperative agreement program supporting seven research sites across the U.S. with the goal of translating findings from basic research on human behavior into more effective interventions to alter obesity-related health behaviors (e.g., diet, physical activity). As part of the ORBIT consortium, Dr. Czajkowski led the development of the ORBIT model for designing and testing behavioral treatments for chronic diseases (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/hea/34/10/971). Dr. Czajkowski is a Fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and recently served as President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (2014 - 2015).



Current and/or past BRP mentees include Pat Boyd, Sydney O'Connor and Naomi Greene.


Research Areas

  • Psychosocial and behavioral risk factors and interventions
  • Behavioral treatment development
  • Adherence to medical and behavioral regimens
  • Obesity
  • Health-related quality of life

Selected Publications and Presentations

To request edits to this profile, please contact us at ncidccpsbrpadvances@mail.nih.gov.