Reena Cecchini, PhD, Promoted to Research Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh

05/12/2026

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Reena Cecchini of the NRG Oncology Statistical and Data Management Center (SDMC) has been promoted to Research Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh, effective February 2026.

Dr. Cecchini’s association with NSABP spans more than two decades, beginning as a student researcher in 2004 before joining as a faculty member in 2012. Throughout her career, she has served as protocol statistician on several landmark clinical trials, including NSABP B-35, which examined anastrozole versus tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ undergoing lumpectomy plus radiotherapy; NSABP B-39, which compared accelerated partial breast irradiation with whole breast irradiation following breast-conserving surgery for early-stage breast cancer; and NSABP B-47, a trial evaluating adjuvant chemotherapy with or without trastuzumab in high-risk HER2-low invasive breast cancer. Her contributions to each of these studies have been invaluable to the field. In addition, Dr. Cecchini has made significant contributions to the study of relationships between some clinical factors, including body mass index and mammographic breast density, and both the risk of breast cancer occurrence in high-risk populations and the risk of recurrence in patients with early-stage disease.

Alongside her research role, Dr. Cecchini serves as Vice Chair for Practice in the Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also an active member of the NRG Oncology Cancer Prevention and Control Committee and the NCORP Steering Committee.