2020/2021 Arthur M. Sutherland Award and Memorial Lecture Winner

Dr. Paul Jacobsen (USA) 

The Arthur M. Sutherland Award honors an IPOS or psycho-oncology community member with a lifetime achievement in the field of psycho-oncology. This is a late career award and recognizes sustained and distinguished output in psycho-oncology over their whole career. This is the Society’s most important award and reflects the international standing of the recipient.

Dr. Paul Jacobsen received his Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical) from Michigan State University and subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Psychosocial Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is currently an Associate Director in the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences where he directs the Healthcare Delivery Research Program. In this position, he leads a team whose mission is to advance innovative research to improve the delivery of cancer-related care to patients, families, and communities. Before entering government service, Dr. Jacobsen served as Chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior, and later as Associate Center Director for Population Science at the Moffitt Cancer Center. Over the past 30 years, his research has focused on using knowledge from the behavioral and social sciences to understand and address quality of life and quality of care issues in oncology. Dr. Jacobsen is a past recipient of the Trish Green Award for Excellence in Quality of Life Research from the American Cancer Society, the Jimmie Holland Distinguished Leadership Award from the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS), and the Bernard Fox Memorial Award from the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS). He is also a past president of APOS and served in several capacities on the board of IPOS.

2020/2021 Jimmie Holland Memorial Award Winner

Dr.  Chioma Asuzu (Nigeria)

The Jimmie Holland Memorial Award honors an IPOS or psycho-oncology community member recognized for making a unique contribution considered to be a highly creative or pioneering innovation or activity that advances the field of Psycho-oncology. The award is unique in its recognition as Jimmie Holland as a pioneer and chief innovator of our time, as well as recognizes her enormous contribution as mentor.

Chioma Asuzu is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Counselling, and Human Development Studies, University of Ibadan. She is jointly appointed in the Unit of Psycho-oncology, Department of Radiation Oncology of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. She is also a specialist adviser in psycho-oncology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.  Prof. Asuzu is the founding president of both the Psycho-Oncology Society of Nigeria (POSON) as well as of the Association for Psycho-Oncology in Africa (APOA). She has contributed to society by pioneering in the area of psycho-oncology in both Nigeria and Africa as a whole; and expanding this new area of psychology through her teaching, research and community services which are within and outside of Nigeria. She has also developed and is running the MSc in psycho-oncology in the university. She is currently the Vice President (West Africa) of the African Organization for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) and the first African to be voted into the board of the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS). She is married to Professor Michael Asuzu, a community physician and epidemiologist. They have 5 children She is a Catholic Christian and belongs to some church societies such as Christian mothers association of which she is the current national President, Family life education and sacred heart of Jesus and Immaculate of Mary.

2020/2021 Bernard Fox Memorial Award Winner

Dr. Mary Jane Esplen (Canada) 

The Bernard Fox Memorial Award honors an IPOS or psycho-oncology community member who has made an outstanding contribution in education or research to the field of psycho-oncology. The primary focus is on the academic and educational output of the nominee.

Dr. Esplen, is a Full Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto and Scientist and Clinician at the University Health Network. She developed and is the inaugural Executive Director of the de Souza Institute, University Health Network in Toronto- a Knowledge Translation Centre focusing on education for health professionals in oncology and/ or palliative care. To date more than 16,000 health professionals have taken programs from de Souza.  She has held prior Career Scientist awards from CIHR and NCIC for her research program in the field of psychosocial oncology and genetic testing, conducting research on the psychosocial impact of having cancer and / or of genetic testing. Her research program focuses on the design and testing of group psychotherapeutic interventions or psychological scales to address coping challenges or body image among various cancer populations, psychological screening needs or to strategies to address grief and loss. As an example, she has developed a psychological screening tool for genetic testing and a series of self- concept scales to capture specific impacts related to being a gene mutation carrier. Dr. Esplen gives numerous keynotes and workshops in range of topics psychosocial care to prevention and palliative care. Dr. Esplen is a past President of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology (CAPO) and received CAPO’s lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the field of Psycho-oncology.

2020/2021 Noemi Fisman Award for Lifetime Clinical Excellence Winner

Dr. Jong-Heun Kim (South Korea) 

The Noemi Fisman Award for Lifetime Clinical Excellence honors an IPOS or psycho-oncology community member in recognition of outstanding clinical contributions to the field of psycho-oncology. He/she must have served for a major proportion of his/her career as a clinician and be able to demonstrate novel, beneficial and substantial initiatives impacting directly on the care of patients and his/her families either through their own practice or practice developments.

Jong-Heun Kim, M.D. is the Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science in National Cancer Center Korea. He is the president of the Korean Psycho-Oncology Society (2019~2020) and the former president of the Korean Psychosomatic Society (2017~2018). He was a visiting scientist at University of California San Diego (2006~2007) and the National Cancer Center Japan (2018). He played a pivotal role in developing the Korean guidelines of distress management with a grand from the Korean government (2008). Dr. Kim translated the book ‘The Human Side of Cancer’ written by Jimmie Holland into Korean (2014), and edited the first Korean textbook of psycho-oncology, ‘Introduction to Psycho-Oncology (2019)’, written by 15 members of the KPOS. He introduced a communication skills training (CST) for oncologists and nurse at the NCC Korea in 2008. Dr. Kim and his colleagues directed the course more than 40 sessions of CST courses until now. He has also been the chief professor of the Advanced Program for Psycho-Oncology (APPO) at the NCC Korea since 2015. Internationally, Dr. Kim was a member of the Section on Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care in the World Psychiatric Association (2006 ~ 2008). He represents the Republic of Korea also in IPOS federation and Asian Pacific Psycho-Oncology Network (APPON).

2020/2021 Hiroomi Kawano New Investigator Award Winner

Dr. Joanna Fardell (Australia)

The Hiroomi Kawano New Investigator Award honors a new investigator for outstanding research contributions in the field of psycho-oncology and is an early career award. Candidates must be within seven years of active work in psycho-oncology after completing his/her postgraduate, fellowship or equivalent specialist training (defined as a PhD or MD or equivalent). This award is sponsored by the Hiroomi Kawano Foundation in Japan.

Joanna is a registered Psychologist, and completed a Psychology Honours Degree, Masters in Clinical Neuropsychology and PhD in Psychology/Neuroscience. She is Deputy Head of the Behavioural Sciences Unit (BSU), Sydney Children’s Hospital, a Research Fellow for the Kids Cancer Project and Lecturer for the School of Women’s and Children’s Health, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, Sydney Australia. Joanna has diverse research and clinical experiences across psycho-oncology. She completed a “bench” PhD in Psychology/Neuroscience in chemotherapy induced cognitive deficits, where her research established the potential for exercise to ameliorate chemotherapy induced cognitive deficits. She has since moved into more clinically “bedside” focused research on fear of cancer recurrence, contributing to the ConquerFear model of treatment for fear of cancer recurrence, its theoretical underpinnings and issues on measurement of fear of cancer recurrence. More recently, Joanna’s research has focused on the social and educational impact of paediatric and adolescent cancer. For the past 3 years she has led two large studies investigating the educational impact of child and adolescent cancer on education and social-cognitive outcomes, and has attracted over >$4M towards these projects. In her current role, her mission is to translate scientific findings into change at both the practice and policy levels. She has worked closely with Australian government departments of Health and Education to establish Australian school re-entry service guidelines for children with cancer, and contributed to the new Australian model of care for adolescents with cancer. Recognising her emerging expertise, Joanna sits on local and national committees for advancing knowledge translation in paediatric and adolescent health. She supervises PhD, Masters and Honours students across Psychology and Medicine, and is committed to researcher development in Psycho-Oncology.