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K. Michael Cummings

Ph.D., MPH

Principal Investigator, ITC P01 Program Project, USA

Medical University of South Carolina, USA

Dr. Cummings received his Bachelors-of-Science in Health Education at Miami University (Ohio) and his MPH and Ph.D. from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina and co-leader of the Hollings Cancer Center Tobacco Research Program. Before moving to South Carolina in 2011, Dr. Cummings led the tobacco control research program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). In 2002, Dr. Cummings helped establish the ITC Project along with Geoff Fong, Ron Borland, and Gerard Hastings.

Dr. Cummings is widely recognized for his research on smoking behavior, product marketing and consumer perceptions, and the influence of cigarette design on smoking behavior. He has led several NIH funded grants supporting the work of the ITC Project and was instrumental in helping to establish the Tobacco Product Testing lab as part of the ITC project in 2004. In his over 40 year career, Dr. Cummings has authored over 560 peer-reviewed scientific papers as well as contributing to reports for the Office of the Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, the Institute of Medicine, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In the late 1990s, Dr. Cummings was involved in digitizing and indexing the previously secret internal tobacco industry documents which have helped to uncover how cigarette manufacturers directed their marketing to attract youthful replacement smokers and designed cigarettes in ways that make it hard for smokers to quit once they get addicted to nicotine. He has served as an expert witness in litigation against cigarette manufacturers in over 200 cases. In 2009, Dr. Cummings was awarded the prestigious American Cancer Society Luther L. Terry Award for Outstanding Research Contribution in recognition of his research contributions in tobacco control and public health; in 2021 he received the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Disease.

Institution Profile: https://education.musc.edu/MUSCApps/FacultyDirectory/Cummings-Kenneth
Institution Link: https://education.musc.edu/

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International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project
Department of Psychology
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1 Canada

Email: itc@uwaterloo.ca
Phone: +1 519-888-4567 ext. 43597

The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within the Office of Indigenous Relations.

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