Catherine Alfano
Catherine M. Alfano, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Survivorship at the American Cancer Society (ACS) where she provides vision and leadership to ACS research, programming, and policy efforts nationwide to improve the lives of cancer survivors. She previously served as Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)’s Office of Cancer Survivorship where she created seminal funding opportunity announcements in cancer survivorship and administered the majority of the NCI grant portfolio of rehabilitation and lifestyle change trials in cancer survivors. Dr. Alfano trained as a rehabilitation psychologist and has focused her career in cancer survivorship. Dr. Alfano earned her PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis in behavioral medicine from the University of Memphis. Her doctoral work focused on physical activity and health outcomes research and on interventions to help people adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle. She completed her residency in clinical rehabilitation psychology at the University of Washington Medical Center. Following her residency, she completed a clinical fellowship in oncology at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, as well as a post-doctoral research fellowship in Biobehavioral Cancer Prevention and Control at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington. Her research interests include optimizing interventions and models of care for cancer rehabilitation and survivorship; healthy behavior change; and the integration of biological and behavioral pathways governing health, aging, and cancer prognosis. She has extensive expertise in population-based prospective cohort studies of cancer survivors and in lifestyle behavior change trials in cancer survivors and in people at heightened risk for cancer. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has contributed to several key studies examining the effects of weight and exercise on cancer symptoms, quality of life, and prognosis. Dr. Alfano is a frequent speaker internationally and domestically on cancer rehabilitation, cancer survivorship, and research and policy efforts to create effective efficient and patient-centered care for people living with and beyond cancer. In addition to her work at the American Cancer Society, She is an Adjunct Professor of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center. She also holds leadership positions as the Chair of the Cancer Special Interest Group of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and on the Research Task Force of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Cancer Networking Group and the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Survivorship Committee.
Abstracts this author is presenting: