Kerry S. Courneya, Ph.D. is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. His research program focuses on the role of exercise after a cancer diagnosis (i.e., exercise oncology) including how exercise might help cancer patients prepare for treatments, tolerate and respond to treatments, recover after treatments, and improve cancer outcomes. He has published over 600 peer reviewed scientific papers including many influential randomized controlled trials in breast, prostate, colorectal, lymphoma, and testicular cancers. He has received numerous awards for his research including the Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health, the O. Harold Warwick Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society, and the Award of Research Excellence from the Canadian Association of Psycho-Oncology. In 2023, Prof. Courneya was appointed an Officer in the Order of Canada for his scientific contributions to the field of exercise oncology.
Justin Y. Jeon, Ph.D., is a Professor with dual appointments at the Department of Sport Industry Studies and the Cancer Prevention Center at Yonsei Cancer Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Alberta and completed his postdoctoral training at the Joslin Diabetes Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Since joining Yonsei University in 2005, he has established himself as a leading researcher in exercise medicine, with expertise spanning cancer, diabetes, obesity, and cardiac rehabilitation. As the Director of the Exercise Medicine Center for Diabetes and Cancer Patients (ICONS) at Yonsei University, Dr. Jeon has made significant contributions to understanding the role of exercise in chronic disease management and prevention. His research encompasses exercise interventions for cancer patients, diabetes management, cardiac rehabilitation programs, and obesity treatment, demonstrating the broad impact of exercise medicine across various health conditions.Dr. Jeon’s international research experience includes visiting scholar positions at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2011-2012) and the University of Cambridge (2018-2019), where he collaborated with leading researchers in exercise medicine. Through his comprehensive research and leadership, he continues to advance the understanding of exercise as a therapeutic intervention across multiple chronic diseases.
Dr. Sandy Jack is a Professor of Prehabilitation Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at University of Southampton, and Honorary Consultant Clinician Scientist in Perioperative Medicine at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. She has more than 20 years of experience leading and delivering healthcare services in public sectors, including community settings in the UK. She has more than 15 years’ experience in prehabilitation medicine and is considered a national/international leader in her field. She was the first to show that cancer treatments decreased physical fitness, leading to poor outcomes and high–intensity exercise-training reversed/ameliorated the decline and improved tumour regression outcomes. She has a global perspective of the challenges and works with international partners to address these. Dr. Sandy Jack is Co-Director of Fit-4-Consortium and Director of Centre for Human Integrative Physiology in the NIHR Research Facility, and a Board member on numerous societies. She is CI on several trials, including the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership Cancer Transformation funded multi-centre Wessex Fit-Cancer Surgery Trial-WesFit (http://www.wesfit.org.uk).
Dr. Patricia C. Brum holds a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from the University of São Paulo (1995). She did her Postdoctoral research in Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Stanford University, CA, USA (1999-2001) and in Exercise Physiology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway (2009). Dr. Patricia C. Brum was a visiting guest professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2012-2013). She is the coordinator of the Health Area panel at São Paulo State Research Foundation -FAPESP. Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Currently, she is a full professor of Exercise Physiology at the University of São Paulo with dual affiliation at the School of Physical Education and Sport and at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr Helene Rundqvist has a degree in Molecular Biology, and a PhD in Physiology (Karolinska Institutet) as well as post doctoral experience focusing on the contribution of the immune system to metastatic dissemination in transgenic animal models (University of California, SD). She currently holds a Senior Researcher position at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, combining basic science research in Exercise Oncology with patient intervention studies.
Mary Kennedy, PhD, FACSM is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Implementation Science at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia. Dr. Kennedy’s research focuses on the integration of exercise into clinical healthcare. She is specifically interested in identifying strategies to support the widespread implementation of exercise into standard oncology care. Dr. Kennedy is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and serves on the ACSM Exercise is Medicine® Moving Through Cancer Task Force. She is also the founder of the Implementation Science Café at ECU, which serves as a resource hub to encourage health researchers to use implementation methods in their work. Dr Kennedy is supported by a Cancer Council of Western Australia Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Dr. Jennifer Ligibel is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Physician in the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ligibel’s research focuses on the impact of energy balance factors, such as physical activity and body weight, upon cancer risk and outcomes. She has conducted more than a dozen randomized trials evaluating the impact of exercise and weight loss interventions on endpoints such as cardiorespiratory fitness, biomarkers associated with cancer risk and outcomes, body composition, and quality of life in cancer patients and survivors. This work has culminated in the design and implementation of the Breast Cancer Weight Loss (BWEL) Trial, the only fully powered Phase III clinical trial designed to test the impact of a weight loss intervention on invasive disease-free survival in women with early-stage breast cancer and obesity (NCT02750826).
Dr. Anne May is a professor in clinical epidemiology of cancer survivorship and Research Director of the Julius Center at the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. She is also group leader of the “Lifestyle and functioning in cancer survivorship” theme at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Starting during her PhD research and ever thereafter, she is investigating the effects of lifestyle on treatment-related side effects and prognosis as well as the underlying mechanisms, with a special emphasis on physical activity and exercise. She has been involved in exercise-oncology research for more than 20 years and has performed several multi-center randomized controlled trials showing positive effects of exercise on treatment-related side effects in patients with, amongst others, breast, colon or esophageal cancer. She also serves at lifestyle and cancer related guideline panels (ASCO, ACSM). Last, she is committed to implementing the positive results regarding lifestyle in clinical practice so that as many patients as possible can benefit.
As Director of Research of the Viertel Cancer Research Centre, Professor Sandi Hayes leads a comprehensive intra- and extramural program of cancer research. Following undergraduate training in exercise science, postgraduate training in exercise oncology and postdoctoral training in cancer survivorship epidemiology, Professor Hayes has led cancer cohort studies and clinical trials focused on understanding and reducing cancer-related morbidity, as well as enhancing quality of life and survival for those diagnosed with cancer. Professor Hayes’s pioneering research in exercise oncology and cancer-related lymphoedema have driven international guidelines, policies and practice. Sandi is passionate about driving research excellence in cancer survivorship and exercise oncology, and improving cancer research and workforce capacity required to underpin advancements in cancer prevention and survivorship.