Cindy Lynn Carmack PhD

Dr. Cindy L. Carmack, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Palliative, Rehabilitation and Integrative Medicine of Cancer Medicine at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Carmack’s research focuses on psychologic factors associated with health and disease. Since joining M. D. Anderson on September 1996, she has examined the impact of cancer on the quality of life (QOL) of both patients and their families. She collaborated on several grants focusing on the QOL of cancer patients, including those diagnosed with testicular, breast, and ovarian cancers. She was also involved in several studies that examined the QOL of the spouses of patients with cancer. One of those studies was funded by the NCI as a supplement to the Cancer Center Support Grant, and it focused on the QOL of spouses of men with prostate cancer.

Dr. Carmack's research interests also include health behaviors such as exercise and smoking and how they influence stress response and QOL in healthy and chronically ill populations. She was the co-principal investigator on two funded studies that examined the effect of a physical-activity lifestyle intervention on the QOL of cancer patients. The first study, Active for Life, was a 3-group randomized controlled trial for patients with prostate cancer who were receiving androgen-ablation therapy.