Phyllis Butow MPH, MClinPsych, PhD

Phyllis Butow is a Professor and NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. She founded the Australian Psycho-Oncology Co-operative Research Group (PoCoG) and the Centre for Medical Psychology and Evidence-based Decision-making (CeMPED). Prof Butow has won many awards, including the IPOS Bernard Fox award for outstanding contribution to Psycho-Oncology research in 2009 and an Order of Australia (AM) in 2014. She has conducted a large body of research on doctor-patient communication, patient involvement in decision-making, patient and family support, cancer genetics, and outcomes and needs of immigrants with cancer.

Recently she has had a major interest in fear of cancer recurrence (FCR), leading the ConquerFear trial, a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of a meta-cognitive, face-to-face psychologist-delivered intervention, which showed high efficacy immediately post-therapy and at 6 months follow-up, and has sparked high international interest and related collaborative studies.