Dr. Horton earned her B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.D. from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She completed her training in Radiation Oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006. She then accepted her first faculty position as an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University with a clinical and research emphasis on the treatment of women with breast cancer. Two years later, she was recruited to Duke in order to guide the clinical and translational radiation oncology breast cancer program.

At that time, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Mark Dewhirst. Her translational research interests are focused on using genomic and proteomic data as a basis for studying radiation response in human breast tumors and utilizing that information to design biologically based radiotherapy trials. She is currently the principal investigator of an ongoing Phase I trial evaluating a novel form of partial breast irradiation that includes pre and post-radiation tissue biopsies designed to validate her preclinical findings. Her long-term goal is to identify pathways that could be pharmacologically exploited in low and high risk breast cancer patients allowing for dose-escalation or reduction according to risk. Towards that end, she is also obtaining a Masters in Clinical Research through the Clinical Research Training Program. 

Dr. Martha Payne received a B.A. in neuroscience from Oberlin College, and an M.P.H and Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation included a characterization of diet among individuals with late-life depression (both with and without comorbid cerebrovascular disease), associations between dietary factors and brain lesions in late-life depression, and the predictive ability of dietary quality on depression outcomes. Dr. Payne continues to focus her research efforts on depression and cerebrovascular disease, and the role that nutrition may have in modifying this relationship. Of particular interest is the role of calcium in the development of ischemic brain lesions, particular in older women with depression. Dr. Payne’s prior work indicates that higher calcium intakes are associated with greater brain lesion volumes in older adults. As a BIRCWH Scholar, Dr. Payne will examine the role of calcium in the progression of brain lesions in women with late-life depression. In addition, she will examine the role of serum calcium in the dietary calcium-brain lesion relationship.
Dr. Payne is a member of two honor societies: Delta Omega and Sigma Xi. 

Dr. Taylor earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Goucher College. She simultaneously worked on her Master’s degree course work at North Carolina A&T State University while a Scholar in Residence at Rohm and Haas Company in Norristown, PA. She then went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she worked on Electronic Coupling Mechanisms in Cyclophane Biradicals before conducting her doctoral research in Polymer Physical Chemistry.

Upon completion of her doctoral degree, Dr. Taylor worked as a postdoctoral fellow at UNC‐Chapel Hill on the design and characterization of polymer materials for novel applications. Dr. Taylor joined the North Carolina Central faculty as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry in 2005. One of her research interests involves the design and evaluation of polymeric materials for targeted drug delivery in diseases related to women’s health.

She is focused on developing the hyperbranched polyglycerol platform for the targeted delivery of therapeutics to breast cells infected with cancer disease. The pharmacological evaluation of this polymeric platform is also a focus of her research.