Dr. Arana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) and an Affiliate Member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute. Before joining Rutgers in 2023, she was a Research Assistant Professor/T32 Fellow at the University of Rochester Medical School, Division of Supportive Care in Cancer.
Dr. Arana’s research program focuses on the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions to improve the quality of life and reduce the cancer symptom burden in historically marginalized populations, primarily Hispanic cancer survivors. Dr. Arana has taken the lead in several projects incorporating principles of the community-based participatory approach in assessing and addressing cancer disparities. She also received an NCI Diversity Supplement Award to analyze the relationship between biopsychosocial factors and smoking patterns among Hispanics and has led the recruitment of Hispanics into a large clinical trial that resulted in two published first-author manuscripts. Additionally, Dr. Arana led a qualitative study to understand the needs of rural older adult cancer survivors and has analyzed the effects of yoga on improving cancer-related fatigue and quality of life in older cancer survivors and in racially and ethnically diverse survivors. Dr. Arana is currently working on developing a culturally informed Latin Dancing intervention to address sleep disturbances in Hispanic cancer survivors.