Cancer Survivorship Expert Dr. Frank J. Penedo Joins Sylvester

Frank J. Penedo, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert in cancer survivorship and psychosocial oncology, will join Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center on August 15 as associate director for cancer survivorship and translational behavioral research. Dr. Penedo will also co-lead the cancer control research program.

Frank J. Penedo, Ph.D.

Dr. Penedo will be a professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, and will hold a joint appointment in the Department of Medicine, Division of Population Health and Computational Medicine, at the Miller School of Medicine.

“I am delighted to rejoin the team at Sylvester and the Department of Psychology,” said Dr. Penedo, who spent the first 12 years of his career at Sylvester and the University of Miami. “I am very pleased to join an exceptional team of faculty and staff at Sylvester and the Department of Psychology, and I look forward to working with the many friends and colleagues I have at Miami to reduce the burden of cancer in our patients and the communities we serve.”

As associate director, Dr. Penedo will be responsible for developing and enhancing research specific to cancer survivorship. He will be implementing the delivery of evidence-based psychosocial care across Sylvester clinics. As director of survivorship, Dr. Penedo will oversee distress screening and survivorship care planning initiatives aligned with Commission on Cancer accreditation standards. He will also direct the Cancer Survivorship Translational Research and Care Initiative to build an institute that brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts in cancer control and survivorship with the primary aim of bridging scientific discoveries in cancer control and survivorship research to cancer care delivery, education, training and community outreach.

“Survivorship is the goal of all our work at Sylvester. In our research laboratories, at the patient’s bedside and in our clinic, we know that there is more to cancer care than treating physical ailments. A large component is psychosocial care,” said Sylvester Director Stephen D. Nimer, M.D. “We are very happy Dr. Penedo will bring his expertise and leadership in this area to Sylvester, which will profoundly benefit our patients.”

Dr. Philip McCabe, chair of the Department of Psychology, said, “We are delighted to welcome Dr. Penedo back to Miami, and are enthusiastic about what he will contribute to the department, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the South Florida community.”

Dr. Penedo received his Ph.D. in clinical health psychology at the University of Miami. He completed his clinical residency at the University of Pittsburgh Western Psychiatric Institute, and a fellowship in psychosocial oncology and behavioral medicine at Sylvester and the UM Department of Psychology. From 2000 until 2012, he held a faculty position in psychology and at Sylvester.

Since 2012, he has served as professor of medical social sciences, psychiatry and psychology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. At Northwestern, Dr. Penedo is the leader of the cancer control and survivorship research program and director of survivorship at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.

At the Lurie Cancer Center he created and directs the Cancer Survivorship Institute, a behavioral translational research and clinical care institute. He is the inaugural Roswell Park Endowed Chair in Medical Social Sciences and is currently president of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Penedo is the author of more than 175 articles in cancer survivorship.

Over his career, Dr. Penedo has led a portfolio of $14.9 million in extramural funding as a principal investigator. He currently holds two RO1 grants and an NCI-funded T32 grant. As program leader of the survivorship research program at Northwestern his major accomplishments include the development and adaptation of evidence-­based psychosocial interventions to improve patient-reported outcomes in diverse ambulatory cancer patients, and implementation of symptom and toxicity screening and management in the context of cancer care delivery by capitalizing on advances in mobile technologies and bioinformatics. Much of this work addresses the complexities and psychosocial challenges of precision oncology screening and care.

Tags: cancer survivorship, Frank Penedo, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center