Awards

…to the APOS 2021 Award Recipients!

The Jimmie Holland Lifetime Achievement Award

Terry Badger, PhD, Award Presentation and Acceptance

University of Arizona College of Nursing,

View Past Award Recipients Here!

The Ruth McCorkle Excellence in Research Mentorship Award

Elyse Park, PhD, MPH

Massachusetts General Hospital

View Past Award Recipients Here!

The Outstanding Clinical Care Award

Mary Hughes, RN

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

View Past Award Recipients Here!

The Outstanding Education and Training Award

Sharla Wells-Di Gregorio, PhD

The Ohio State University

View Past Award Recipients Here!

The New Investigator Award

Jennifer Barsky Reese, PhD

Fox Chase Cancer Center

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The Distinguished Public Service Award

Catherine Alfano, PhD

Northwell Health

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Awards Information
The Awards Committee of the APOS Board shall select recipients of APOS awards. The APOS Board of Directors will make nominations for all awards in the event no one is nominated from APOS membership.

Dr. Terry Badger is the Eleanor Bauwens Endowed Chair and Professor at the University of Arizona College of Nursing. She is the Chair of the Community and Systems Health Science Division and also Professor in The University of Arizona Department of Psychiatry and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. She has published over 125 papers in peer refereed journals and book chapters, led over 30 extramurally funded grants, and delivered more than 150 presentations at regional, national, and international conferences. Dr. Badger is a pioneer and leader in the field of psychosocial oncology research among cancer survivor-caregiver dyads and in reducing health disparities among Latinas with breast cancer and their informal caregivers. For the past three decades, Dr. Badger has tested and continues to test psychosocial support interventions with the goal of improving the lives of the growing legions of cancer survivors and their informal caregivers. She has published groundbreaking landmark papers on the topic of interdependence of survivor and caregiver outcomes and developed an inter-individual model of distress, which provides sound theoretical grounding for dyadic psychosocial interventions She is founder of the Symptoms, Health, Innovations, Equity (SHINE) research group that seeks to improve symptom management and quality of life for cancer survivors and their informal caregivers. Dr. Badger is currently the principal investigator, and the SHINE group members are co-investigators, on two National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grants devoted to the management of psychological distress and cancer- and treatment-related symptoms among survivors of solid tumor cancers and their informal caregivers. Her current research tests optimal personalized sequencing of interventions and determines if addressing depressive symptoms allows cancer survivors and caregivers to cognitively reframe beliefs regarding the efficacy of their actions towards symptom management.

Dr. Badger is committed to nursing education and preparing a new generation of researchers and practitioners. Since 2000, she has graduated over 45 PhD and DNP students, over 25 of them as a major professor. Dr. Badger’s professional service is extensive and includes serving as a: reviewer for health sciences research, education, and practice journals; conference organizer; advisory board member; president of professional societies; reviewer of grants for the American Cancer Society, NIH, and numerous foundations; and consultant to community mental health organizations. She is a Past President and Fellow of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society.

Dr. Park is a clinical health psychologist and health services researcher. A Professor of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School, she is Director of the Behavioral And Resiliency Intervention Delivery Science Program at MGH, and she co-directs the cancer survivorship program at the MGH Cancer Center. Additionally, she is director of Behavioral Research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at MGH and the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center. Her research focuses on developing and implementing behavioral interventions to enhance resiliency, decrease tobacco use, and improve access to healthcare. She founded the MGH Qualitative Mixed Methods Research Unit. She has been funded by the American Cancer Society (ACS), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ), and the Livestrong Foundation to support her survivorship and cancer prevention research. Her contributions are reflected in 250 peer-reviewed publications. Clinically, she treats cancer survivors. She founded two hospital-based clinical services: the MGH Cancer Center’s Smokefree Support Service and the MGH Cancer Center Resiliency Survivorship Group Program.

As recipient an NCI K24 mentoring award recipient to promote patient-oriented research, she conducts her research, and mentors junior Medicine trainees and faculty, on the integration of behavioral interventions into cancer clinical care. She mentors trainees and faculty in the departments of Psychiatry, Medicine, Oncology, Pulmonology, Nephrology, Radiology, and Pediatrics at MGH. She is a primary clinical research mentor for 4 NIH K awards, advisor on 5 NIH K awards, co-primary mentor for 1 MGH K12 Fellow Award in Addiction Medicine, and a primary mentor for 3 NIH Diversity Supplement Awards. She is currently conducting two NCI-funded R01 effectiveness-implementation trials integrating telehealth-delivered tobacco treatments into patients’ care during cancer screening and at the time of a cancer diagnosis. These trials are available to English and Spanish speaking patients and utilize novel health information technology (IT) platforms to promote patient outreach and access, including patient portals, informational clinician videos, and video-conferencing software. She is also conducting an American Cancer Society-funded trial to assess a health insurance navigation for childhood cancer survivors.

Dr. Park was the standing Chair of the American Cancer Society’s national peer review Psychosocial and Behavioral research committee and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for NIH review committees as well as for various foundations. She is a member of the NCCN’s Guidelines for Smoking Cessation for cancer patients and the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Tobacco Taskforce. She serves on the American Cancer Society’s National Lung Cancer Round Table as a Task Group member of the Provider Outreach and Tobacco Task Groups. She co-chairs the ECOG-ACRIN Health Promotion Subcommittee within the Cancer Control and Survivorship Committee, to advance a program of health promotion research within the community-based oncology clinics in the National Clinical Trials Network.

Vice President, Cancer Care Management and Research; Northwell Health Cancer Institute Professor, Department of Medicine; Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; & Center for Personalized Health, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research

Catherine Alfano, PhD, is an international leader in cancer survivorship and cancer rehabilitation. At Northwell Health, she leads both clinical care design and research across the health system. Operationally, she develops and oversees the implementation and integration of a high-quality cancer survivorship program for the health system with a goal of reducing unnecessary costs as a result of more timely and effective care while simultaneously improving long-term patient outcomes. She also oversees the growth of new research development and training programs and research projects. Before joining Northwell, she served as the Vice President of Survivorship at the American Cancer Society where she provided vision and leadership to ACS research, programming, and policy efforts nationwide to improve the lives of cancer survivors. She previously served as the Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Office of Cancer Survivorship where she created funding opportunity announcements to fill gaps in cancer survivorship and transdisciplinary research and administered a grant portfolio of cancer rehabilitation, symptom management, and behavior change trials. Dr. Alfano’s research aims to speed the effective translation of research into practice and inform supporting policy to optimize patient outcomes and clinic efficiency, address provider shortages, and decrease healthcare costs. This research focuses on: 1) Domestic and global efforts to improve interventions and models of care delivery for oncology, cancer rehabilitation, and survivorship; 2) Integrating multi-source Big Data including Real World Evidence to generate insights for predictive and prescriptive analytics and creating mobile health and other digital health tools leading to better-personalized care approaches; 3) Incorporating rehabilitation, healthy behavior change, and self-management into oncology and cancer follow-up care; and 4) The integration of biological and behavioral pathways governing health, accelerated aging, function, and cancer prognosis. In addition to her roles at Northwell, she has led work with the American Society of Clinical Oncology to help American healthcare systems develop risk & need-stratified survivorship care that focuses on helping patients self-manage their health and delivers care outside of clinic walls. She has held leadership positions as the Chair of the Cancer Special Interest Group of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and Co-Chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline Panel: Diet, Physical Activity and Weight Management During Cancer Treatment. She has served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Survivorship Committee and Energy Balance Sub-committee, and on the Research Task Force of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Cancer Networking Group.