Cecelia A. Bellcross, PhD, MS, CGC

Following three years of teaching high school biology, Dr. Bellcross pursued the field of genetic counseling and has never looked back. After two years with the U.W.-Madison Hospital and Clinics in their Prenatal and Biochemical Genetics Clinics, she joined Dean Health System in Madison, WI where she practiced as a clinical genetics counselor from 1992-2008. She developed and directed the Dean Cancer Risk Assessment Clinic, and specialized in cancer genetic counseling for the last 10 years of her clinical career.

Recognizing the growing impact of genetics on a population level, she completed her doctorate in Population Health Sciences, where her dissertation research involved development and validation of a hereditary breast/ovarian cancer genetics referral screening tool. In 2010, she completed a two-year American Society of Human Genetics Public Health Genetics fellowship through the Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. While at the CDC, she was involved in several projects related to population-based screening and education for hereditary cancer syndromes, and promoting use of family history to identify risk for common disease.

She joined the Emory Department of Human Genetics in 2010 to develop and direct the first Genetic Counseling Training Program in the state of Georgia. This program leads to a Master of Medical Science degree in Human Genetics and Genetic Counseling, and is accredited by the Accreditation Council of Genetic Counseling.