Announcing four new Professors
2 min read 19 July 2023
Congratulations to Jeanne Tie, Penny Schofield, Tomas Kron and Belinda Parker who have recently earned the appointment of Honorary Professorial Fellow (Level E) with the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Tie is a consultant medical oncologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
As a colorectal cancer clinician researcher, Professor Tie is focussed on the clinical applications of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA). She has received grant funding totaling over eight million dollars and has been instrumental in setting up a ctDNA clinical program and is spear-heading several world-leading ctDNA-guided randomised adjuvant clinical trials in colorectal cancer.
Professor Schofield has been the Professor of Health Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology since 2015. In 2022 she was re-appointed at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre as the Professor of Digital Cancer Care Innovation. This role enables her to expand her own programme of oncological behavioural science research, particularly in digital technology; and to identify and foster broad transdisciplinary research collaborations between Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Swinburne University of Technology.
Professor Kron OAM commenced his career at Peter Mac in 2005 as a principal research physicist and is currently the Director of Physical Sciences. He has been a significant contributor to the Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology (TROG), one of Australia’s leading collaborative cancer trials group.
He migrated to Australia from Germany after completing his PhD to commence a career in radiotherapy physics. He moved to Canada from 2001 til 2005 where he worked at the London Regional Cancer Centre and led the commissioning of one of the first TomoTherapy units.
Professor Parker is co-Head of the Cancer Evolution and Metastasis program and Head of the Cancer Metastasis and Precision Immunotherapy laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. She is currently an NHMRC Investigator Fellow after holding a VCA Mid-career and ARC Future Fellowship.
She has extensive expertise in cancer metastasis and the tumour microenvironment, combination immunotherapy trials, preclinical metastasis models, bone metastatic dormancy, and biomarker discovery. Her patented biomarkers are currently being tested in partnership with a range of pharmaceutical companies for precision radiotherapy and immunotherapy approaches.