Kerry Courneya

Kerry S. Courneya, Ph.D., is a professor and Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He received his B.A. (1987) and M.A. (1989) in Kinesiology from Western University in London, Canada and his Ph.D. (1992) in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). He spent five years as an assistant/associate professor at the University of Calgary before moving to the University of Alberta in 1997. He was promoted to full professor in 2000 and awarded a Canada Research Chair in 2004. Prof. Courneya’s research program focuses on physical activity and cancer survivorship including how exercise may help cancer survivors prepare for treatments, cope with treatments, recover after treatments, and improve long term survival. Prof. Courneya is Study Co-Chair for the multinational Colon Health and Life-Long Exercise Change (CHALLENGE) Trial, which is the first phase III randomized trial designed to determine the effects of exercise on disease-free survival in 962 colon cancer survivors. He is also a member of the steering committee for the Intense Exercise for Survival (INTERVAL) Trial, which is a multinational phase III trial examining the effects of exercise on overall survival in 866 men with advanced prostate cancer. He is also Team Co-Leader for the Alberta Moving Beyond Breast Cancer (AMBER) Study, which is the first prospective cohort study designed to determine the associations between objectively-measured physical activity, health-related fitness, and cancer outcomes in 1,500 newly diagnosed Alberta breast cancer survivors. Prof. Courneya has co-authored the American College of Sports Medicine’s exercise guidelines for cancer survivors (2010), the American Cancer Society’s physical activity and nutrition guidelines for cancer survivors (2012), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology's position statement on obesity and cancer (2014).