He is the Wallin Land Grant Professor of Cancer Prevention in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota.
[3] Hecht's research focuses on the mechanisms whereby carcinogens in tobacco and the environment cause cancer.
[4] He has been studying the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer for over four decades.
[5] For example, he has studied the ways in which certain people, such as babies whose mothers smoke during pregnancy, are exposed to carcinogens in tobacco.
In 2012, he received the American Society of Preventive Oncology's Joseph W. Cullen Award.