Potischman was born in 1955.[1] She earned a B.S. in biochemistry from University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from Cornell University.[2] Her 1989 dissertation was titled, The Associations Between Breast Cancer and Biochemical and Dietary Indicators of Nutrient Status.[1]
Potischman joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a fellow in the Cancer Epidemiology and Biostatistics Training Program in 1989.[2] She spent 26 years working at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on cervical, endometrial, and breast cancers.[2] After a brief stint as an associate professor in the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she returned to NCI and remained until 2015.[2] Potischman devoted years to studying early origins of cancers and wrote several book chapters on life course epidemiology.[2] She evaluated factors associated with differences in biomarkers for foods and hormones across populations, worked with a cognitive psychologist to update and improve the validity of the food frequency questionnaire and worked on several iterations of NCI's Automated Self-Administered Dietary Assessment Tool.[2]
She worked on a large epidemiologic study of diet and premenopausal breast cancer that provided evidence of possible bias related to post-diagnosis influences, in particular the over-reporting of food intake by patients undergoing chemotherapy.[2] Potischman also collaborated on an endometrial cancer study that used anthropometric data, including weight, height and body mass index, from centers across the U.S. and explored other risk factors.[2] In addition, she collected distant-past food intake data and worked with radiation dosimetrists to measure diet-related radiation exposure following nuclear testing in the 1940s to 1960s in Kazakhstan and in the 1940s and 1950s in New Mexico.[2]
From 2016 to April 2023, Potischman was a senior nutritional epidemiologist and as director of the population studies program in the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS).[3] At ODS, Potischman studied dietary supplement use data among various U.S. populations.[2] She reported, for example, that use of dietary supplements containing iodine among pregnant and lactating women and use of vitamin D and iron supplements among exclusively breastfed infants are below current recommendations, and that most older adults take multiple micronutrient and botanical supplements.[2] After April 2023, Potischman now works part-time as a consultant on ODS projects including those focused on folate.[3]
