Cancer affects 1 in 5 people, but research shows that regular exercise can help prevent it, reduce side effects from treatment and even lower the risk of it coming back. The science behind "exercise as medicine" is growing fast, with exciting breakthroughs in fitness, medicine and mental health. A new global movement is launching to make exercise a standard part of cancer care — and students from all fields can be part of shaping the future of health.

Speaker

Kathryn H Schmitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., FACSM, FSBM, FTOS, FNAK, FSEM, is a professor in the division of hematology and oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC), and currently serves as the interim director of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. She also serves as the associate director of Population Science, co-leader of the Biobehavioral Cancer Control program, co-leader of the UPMC Hillman Survivorship Program and director of the Moving Through Cancer Exercise Oncology Program for the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. She has held NCI funding consistently since 2001. She has published over 350 scientific peer reviewed papers, some in prestigious journals such as JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of Clinical Oncology. Her well regarded research on resistance exercise and breast cancer related lymphedema has been translated into a physical therapy delivered program called "Strength After Breast Cancer" that is available in over 1,000 locations across the United States and beyond.

Schmitz was the moving force behind two American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) development processes for exercise and cancer guidelines for patients in 2010 and 2018. She founded the Moving Through Cancer initiative of the ACSM, which has a bold goal of making exercise the standard of care in oncology by 2029. She has written a popular press book to raise awareness about exercise for cancer patients and survivors entitled "Moving Through Cancer" that was released by Chronicle Books in October 2021. She is the winner of numerous awards, most notably the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the Citation Award from the ACSM and the Clinical Research Professorship from the American Cancer Society. In fall 2023, she was inducted as an Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is a past president of the ACSM.