Gulcan Bagcivan, Turkey (Co-Chair)

Dr. Gulcan Bagcivan is an Assistant Professor at Koc University School of Nursing in Istanbul/Turkey. She has 15 years of oncology nursing background in both the clinical and academic settings. After two year of clinical experiences she started master’s in nursing and since then she has been teaching oncology nursing and doing research on cancer and palliative care. Gulcan holds a PhD, a MSc in Medical Nursing, a BSc (Hons) in General Nursing and MSc in Epidemiology. She has been at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)/ U.S. as post-doc visiting researcher for two years.  She has focused on pain management, symptom management, oral chemotherapy adherence and palliative care in cancer patient in her thesis, dissertation and in post-doc research projects. Gulcan is experienced in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, and is currently involved in the design and conduct of several research projects in the areas of cancer care, palliative care and chronic illness. In her current role, Gulcan is supervisor for postgraduate research projects and provides lectures in Research, Medical Nursing, Oncology Nursing courses on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the School of Nursing.

Maura Dowling, Ireland (Co-Chair)
Dr Maura Dowling has over 30 years of clinical practice, education and research experience in oncology nursing. She is a senior lecturer at the School Nursing and Midwifery, National University of Ireland, Galway, and programme director of the MHSc in Oncology and Haematology nursing. Maura’s research expertise spans most qualitative methodologies, including phenomenology and qualitative evidence synthesis and she is a research associate with Evidence Synthesis Ireland (ESI). Maura supervises masters and PhD students and supports a network of oncology and haematology nurses nationally undertaking and publishing research.

Paz Fernández-Ortega, Spain
Dr Fernández-Ortega is the Nursing Research Coordinator at the cancer center of the Institute Català d’ Oncologia and has worked in Oncology since 1985. She is also an associate professor at Barcelona University where she teaches cancer nursing and research methods for undergraduate and postgraduate students. She was an EONS Board Member from 1999 to 2006 and was the recipient of the EONS Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Paz earned her PhD with honors, cum-laude with a special mention in Nursing Sciences and she has a Master’s in Clinical Psychology. Her expertise includes Nursing Cancer Care – Oncology; Nursing Education; Nursing Research; Quality of Life and Symptoms Management and Psycho-social support. She is currently the chair of the Education Study Group of MASCC and belongs to the Cancer Care Node of the Joanna Briggs Institute.

Karin Brochstedt Dieperink, Denmark
Karin Brochstedt Dieperink, RN, MCN, PhD is Associate Professor, Department of Oncology, Odense University Hospital and Deputy Head at Department of Clinical Research. She is Head of Research at Family focused healthcare research Centre (FaCe), University of Southern Denmark (SDU). She is also head of the Danish Family Nursing Association.

Clinical and research interests:
Karin’s interests are in nursing, rehabilitation, palliative and supportive care for cancer patients and their families. The research area is concerning cancer patients’ acute and late adverse effects after treatment, quality of life and coping with the life situation and rehabilitation for prevention or reducing late adverse effects, furthermore, uncovering the impact of disease on family health and innovative interventions with family involvement.
Karin has experience with different research methods: patient reported outcomes (PRO) randomized controlled trials, focus group interviews and individual interviews, reviews and translation and validation of questionnaires.
International collaboration with researchers within family nursing in Australia, and actively involved in the European FAME-RN research group with nursing researchers from Finland, Netherland, Switzerland, Spain, and Iceland.

Sara Colomer-Lahiguera, Switzerland

Sara obtained her Bachelor of Nursing degree in 2006 at the University of Valencia (Spain). She then worked as a pediatric oncology nurse in university hospitals in Valencia and Barcelona. In 2010, she started a translational research path, first obtaining two master degrees and moving on to doing her PhD in Biomedicine at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) which she defended in 2015. Her thesis was conducted at the St. Anna Kinderkrebsforschung Institute (Vienna, Austria) where she studied the role of cell cycle regulators in the development of pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

In 2017, Sara joined the Institute of Higher Education and Research in Healthcare at the University of Lausanne and the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) where she is currently leading a study in the Department of Oncology to better understand the experience, needs, and symptoms of cancer patients starting a treatment with immunotherapies. For this study, Sara was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship from the European Commission (H2020 programme). Her research has a special focus on patient-reported outcomes measures, symptoms, and biomarkers in immuno-oncology.

Cherith Semple, UK

Dr Cherith Semple, has over twenty years of clinical practice, education and research experience in oncology nursing.  She is a Reader in Clinical Cancer Nursing, which is a joint clinical academic appointment between Ulster University and South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.  Cherith currently has a clinical caseload providing care to patients and their families newly diagnosed with head and neck cancer, and leads on two research programmes of work, namely, “Promoting positive coping when a parent of dependent children has cancer” and “Addressing QOL issues for patients with head and neck cancer”.  She also supervises PhD and MSc students and impacts teaching programmes for nurses.  Recent achievements include RCN Northern Ireland Nurse of the Year in 2015 and she was awarded a MBE in the Queen’s Honour List  in 2017.

Eva Pape, Belgium

Mrs Eva Pape, MSc, is a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) digestive oncology at Ghent University Hospital in Belgium. She counsels patients with curative rectal cancer and patients with a local recurrence in need of a pelvic exenteration. Eva combines this with her PhD at Ghent University Hospital and the University centre for nursing and midwifery at Ghent University. In the first phase, she conducted a qualitative study based on the principles of the grounded theory to explore the needs of patients with the low anterior resection syndrome (LARS) and their informal carer. In the current phase, the plan is to optimise care for patients with LARS by developing education material and a nurse-led clinic. Eva is also an executive board member of two national societies: the national society for oncology nurses (VVRO) and the national society for CNS (BVVS). In this last society, she leads the research working group.

Susana Miguel, Portugal

Susana Miguel is a Specialist in Medical-Surgical Nursing, working at the Head and Neck Surgery/ENT and Endocrinology Department of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Francisco Gentil, with differentiated competence in Oncological Nursing.

She is doing a PhD in Nursing at the Portuguese Catholic University, Collaborator in the Interdisciplinary Health Research Center of the Portuguese Catholic University.

She has advanced competence in Clinical Supervision with educational and practice experience with students from different degrees and specialities. She coordinates the working group of oncologic surgery (Oncocirurgia) from the Portuguese Association of Nursing Oncology (AEOP).

Susana has a Masters in Health Unit Management with advanced competence in Management. She is also author and co-author of several national and international publications.

Clinical and research interests: research, mixed methods (Q Methodology), focus groups, nursing diagnoses, surgery, head and neck cancer, body image, low self-esteem, tracheostomy.

Lucia Cadorin, Italy

Lucia is a continuing education designer and research nurse at the Healthcare Profession Management Office, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico di Aviano – National Cancer Institute – IRCCS/Italy. She has a 30-year background in oncology nursing. After spending 11 years in a clinical setting, she transitioned to working in continuing education and academic settings. Lucia earned her PhD in “Research Methodology in Nursing” from Genoa University in 2016. Currently, she is dedicated to educating and raising awareness among nurses regarding research methodology and the utilization of scientific evidence in clinical practice.

Her research interests primarily revolve around educational topics, emphasizing strategies and the evaluation of nurses’ self-directed and meaningful learning. Her focus extends to methodological research, including instrument validation and ethical aspects of the nursing profession. Lucia is experienced in various research methods such as quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and systematic reviews.

Zeynep Karakus, Türkiye

Dr Zeynep Karakus is a Research Assistant in the Department of Internal Medicine Nursing at Akdeniz University, Antalya, Türkiye. She obtained a PhD and an MSc in Internal Medicine Nursing from Akdeniz University and a BSc with honors in General Nursing from Hacettepe University. She had been at Medizinische Hochschule Hannover in Germany for three months within the Erasmus Internship Mobility Programme in 2009. She worked as a clinical nurse in cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, and transplantation wards. She is interested in symptom management, quality of life, and well-being of patients with chronic illnesses. She focused on symptom management of cancer patients in her MSc and PhD thesis. She collaborates on both national and international projects. She is a member of the Turkish Nurses Association and the Turkish Oncology Nursing Society.