Carissa A. Low

Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh

Carissa Low's research aims at concrete public health benefit for people with cancer — not "interesting science" or "eventual benefit downstream," but interventions and evidence that could plausibly change how a meaningful number of patients are cared for in the next 5-10 years. She works on the parts oncology doesn't already address (mood, behavior, meaningful daily activity, the inflammation that tracks stress) in vulnerable populations during the hardest moments (advanced cancer, active chemo, surgical recovery, older survivors). She closes the loop from measurement to action with low-burden interventions a real patient could use, ideas that map onto active NIH funding priorities, and — as of round-002 — methodologies that are not smartphone passive sensing or wearables.

Runs

Each run is a snapshot. Runs are listed newest-first; click in for the round microsite with that round's ideas, evaluations, and profile snapshot.

Round 2

9 ★ 4 contender 7 reframe 20 total

User-supplied updates after reviewing round-001:

Smartphone and wearable sensing dropped as in-scope methods. This rules out an entire class of round-001 ideas (voice features, smart-speaker cough, keyboard dynamics, CGM, ambient radar, CAR-T wearable detection, etc.). New anti-theme A8 added.
- Themes T1 ("make lived experience visible") and T6 ("consumer-grade scalable") were rewritten — T1 now favors ePRO/EMA, qualitative, EHR-derived signals, biospecimens at routine visits; T6 became "aligns with active NIH funding priorities."
Direct, near-term public-health benefit added as a bar underneath every theme — new T4. The first paragraph of any pitch must answer: if this works, who's life is concretely better, when, and how does the intervention reach them? New anti-theme A9 (eventually-translational without near-term path).
NIH funding priorities added as an evaluation axis — new T6 and anti-theme A10. The evaluator now reads funding-priorities/nih.md and scores funding-fit (STRONG / MODERATE / WEAK) independently of fit and novelty. The funding-priorities/ directory is top-level and extensible to NSF, CDMRP, foundations.
Carryovers from round-001:
- Caregivers upgraded from open question to explicit T5 admit.
- A4 sharpened to catch "call the clinic earlier" pseudo-actions.

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Round 1

4 ★ 10 contender 4 reframe 2 drop 20 total

This was the first run, so nothing changed entering it. The profile was synthesized from her CV, papers, grants, and talks (see ../../evidence/).

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