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Dr. Cullen is the Associate Director of Cancer Control and Population

Sciences for the Houston Methodist (HM) Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer

Center (NCC), Professor of Medicine in the HM Academic Institute, and

Distinguished Chair in the HM-NCC. In these roles, she has the responsibility

of developing an emerging Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) Program

to address local and regional cancer burden, with a goal of identifying high

risk populations and greatly reducing cancer disparities in these regions.

Prior to joining HM-NCC, Jennie served as the Associate Director of Cancer Population Sciences at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), as well as a Professor at the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine, where she also held the endowed James T. Pardee-Carl A. Gerstacker Professorship in Cancer Research. In these roles, she coordinated large team science grants and engaged Northeast Ohio community leaders in scientific endeavors of Case CCC.  

Dr. Cullen’s long-standing research focus has been on the identification and validation of biomarkers to forecast adverse prostate cancer outcomes, with a primary focus on the interplay of biological and social determinants of health (SDOH) that contribute to cancer disparities for a wide range of malignancies.  In her leadership role of almost a decade within the Department of Defense’s “Center for Prostate Disease Research”, she was responsible for a robust clinical data repository that grew to include 29,500+ male military health care beneficiaries, with linkage to biospecimen repositories. She leveraged these “real world” data to inform public health approaches for cancer prevention, treatment, and survivorship.  She also initiated longitudinal data collection of patient-reported outcomes to examine quality of life trajectories for cancer survivors. She was responsible for fostering multi-institutional partnerships with academia and industry, including a pivotal role in the validation of the OncotypeDx® Genomic Prostate Score (GPS), leading to multiple high impact publications and incorporation of the GPS into National Comprehensive Cancer Network treatment guidelines.

She has long-standing experience in mentoring Medical Residents, Masters and PhD-level students, and post-doctoral researchers in basic, clinical and population science disciplines.  Her peer-review funding history includes roles as a Principal Investigator on Department of Defense (DOD) Congressionally directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Awards, an NIH P20 SPORE grant in Cancer Health Disparities, and a 5-year, $2 million Merck Foundation national alliance award to improve equity in cancer care delivery. 

In 2012, Jennie became a fervent patient advocate, after losing her daughter, Alexandra, to a year-long battle with medulloblastoma--a pediatric brain cancer. Her participation in the Alliance for Childhood Cancer annual Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC led to meetings with Congressional representatives where she helped champion legislation for bipartisan sponsorship, including the “Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research” (STAR) Act (Public Law 115-180).  As a member of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, she offered testimony at the Ohio’s State Capitol in support of cancer biomarker testing.  She served as an invited speaker for an Institute of Medicine workshop entitled “Comprehensive Cancer Care for Children and Their Families”, aimed at improving palliative care for childhood cancer patients and their families.  Jennie is deeply committed to research that spans the continuum of cancer care, from prevention to survivorship to palliative care, especially among the most vulnerable cancer populations, particularly children with cancer.