Profile image for Penelope Schofield

Professor Penelope Schofield

Professor, Psychology

Biography

Professor Penelope Schofield is the Professor of Health Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Program Lead: Personalised Health Care in the Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute at Swinburne and Professor of Digital Cancer Care Innovation at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, where she maintains a large and active research team. As part of her roles with both organisations, she is the Partnership Lead, for the Digital Health Collaborative Research Centre.  She is currently the international co-chair of the Digital Health Study Group for the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer. 

A behavioural scientist with over 30 years’ experience conducting research in the field of oncology and other chronic diseases, Professor Schofield has held numerous leadership roles which have informed research strategy, policy and service delivery to promote cancer control in Australia and internationally. Prof Schofield’s research program has a key focus on digital health and adopts a comprehensive approach to develop and deliver effective and sustainable interventions that promote self-care, improve emotional and physical outcomes for patients and carers and alleviate burden on the health system. Her current research focus is to assess and improve survival, quality of life and other patient reported outcomes of people with chronic illness via the development and testing of evidence-based digital health interventions that can be readily integrated into clinical practice. All interventions are developed to be clinically feasible, sustainable, and effective. A particular interest is improving the experiences and outcomes of patients with cancer of unknown primary.  She is co-Principal Investigator for a program of research, Solving Unknown Primary Cancers (SUPER) which has attracted over 11 million in competitive funding. 

Professor Schofield has been Chief Investigator for 72 peer-reviewed grants worth over $41.5 million including Chief Investigator for 2 NHMRC Fellowships, 12 NHMRC project grants, 5 MRFF grants and 10 Cancer Australia project grants. With an h-index of 54, she has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications, the majority she was first/last author. Her research output exhibits a strong upward trajectory, with 15 peer reviewed papers published 2022 alone. She has been invited to present at 22 international and 23 national conferences (the majority fully funded), to chair sessions at 10 conferences (5 international), and to convene 5 international workshops. In recognition of her research achievements, Professor Schofield was awarded the National Health and Medical Research Council Achievement Award in 2010.

PhD candidate and honours supervision

Higher degrees by research

Accredited to supervise Masters & Doctoral students as Principal Supervisor.

Fields of Research

  • Health Services And Systems - 420300
  • Public Health - 420600
  • Applied And Developmental Psychology - 520100
  • Biological Psychology - 520200
  • Clinical And Health Psychology - 520300
  • Cognitive And Computational Psychology - 520400
  • Social And Personality Psychology - 520500

Awards

  • 2010, National, Career Development Fellowship (level 2), NHMRC
  • 2010, National, Achievement Award, NHMRC
  • 2009, National, Best of the best conference presentation, Clinical Oncology Society of Australia
  • 2006, Other, Team Innovation Award (lead investigator), Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
  • 1999, National, Post-doctoral Research Fellowship, NHMRC

Publications

Also published as: Schofield, Penelope; Schofield, P.
This publication listing is provided by Swinburne Research Bank. If you are the owner of this profile, you can update your publications using our online form.

Recent research grants awarded

  • 2023: EMBED: A stepped wedge cluster randomised trial of a tailored, integrated model of care to reduce symptoms of depression in home aged care *; Dementia Ageing and Aged Care Mission
  • 2022: Finding My Way-Advanced: Can a web-based psychosocial intervention improve mental quality of life for women with metastatic breast cancer? *; Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Grants
  • 2022: Growth SUPRA_Piloting a service wide psychology program for home aged care clients *; Silver Chain Group Limited Fund Scheme
  • 2022: Implementation of a scalable platform to enable regulated digital health product development and commercialization *; Digital Health CRC
  • 2022: Solving Unknown Primary cancER Earlier Diagnosis (SUPER-ED): A stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial implementing a new model of care to support earlier diagnosis *; Emerging Priorities and Consumer Driven Research Initiative - Improving Diagnosis in Cancers with Low Survival Rates
  • 2021: e-DiVA (empowering Dementia Carers with an iSupport Virtual Assistant) *; NHMRC eAsia JRP grant
  • 2021: Wearable Devices Research & Innovation Pilot *; Silver Chain Group Limited Fund Scheme
  • 2020: Evaluation of FAPI as a novel radiopharmaceutical targeting cancer-associated fibroblasts for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cancer of unknown primary: the FAPI-CUP trial *; Rare Cancers, Rare Diseases and Unmet Need
  • 2020: Measuring adherence to best practice guidelines for the management of ovarian cancer in Australia to determine the extent to which variation in care influences clinical and patient-reported outcomes. *; Emerging Priorities and Consumer Driven Research Initiative - Ovarian Cancer Research
  • 2020: Peter Mac - 'Smartphone APP: 4-Model Decision Support Tool' *; Project Concept Proposal
  • 2020: Reducing the cost of medication errors and non adherence *; Project Concept Proposal
  • 2019: Australian Carers Talk: An online cancer support resource for carers designed by carers *; Supporting people with cancer Grant initiative
  • 2019: Integrating mental wellness and brain wellness assessment/advice on SiSU stations *; Digital Health CRC
  • 2018: Empowering the clinician-patient-carer TRIO: RCT of novel online education modules to facilitate effective family carer involvement in oncology *; Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Schem
  • 2018: Improving oral medication adherence and reducing medication errors in cancer treatment *; Victorian Cancer Agency Funding Scheme
  • 2018: Linked semantic platforms for social & physical infrastructure & wellbeing *; ARC Linkage Infrastructure and Equipment Scheme
  • 2018: Summary Report on National Patient Experience Data *; Cancer Australia Fund Scheme
  • 2015: ADAPT (aka ASTROID): Active Surveillance and other Treatment OptIons for prostate cancer. A randomised controlled trial of decision aid and DVD information support for men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer and their partners *; NHMRC Project Grants
  • 2013: INFORM: Improving communication outcomes for migrant cancer patients *; NHMRC Project Grants
  • 2011: PeNTAGOn Trial: Peer & Nurse support Trial to Assist women in Gynaecological Oncology *; NHMRC Project Grants

* Chief Investigator


Recent media

There are no media items to display