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Sturgeon named director of ONE Group

Note: This post is written by the team of The ONE Group (Oncology – Nutrition – Exercise) at Penn State College of Medicine as part of a first-person blog about their work. Learn more about the group here.

Kathleen (Katie) Sturgeon, assistant professor and researcher at Penn State Cancer Institute, has been named the new director of the Oncology, Nutrition and Exercise (ONE) Group at Penn State College of Medicine.

Since joining the College of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences in 2016, she has contributed to Penn State’s Cancer Control research program. In addition, she completed the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute‘s Early-Stage Investigator Training Program in 2020. The program, also known as KL2, invests in researchers who are early in their careers and building their research programs. Her project for the KL2 program involved the use of exercise in neoadjuvant breast cancer treatment.

Kathleen (Katie) Sturgeon, PhD, MEd, MS

Kathleen (Katie) Sturgeon

Research projects in her lab focus on exercise’s role in decreasing side effects of cancer treatment, as well as understanding the interaction between exercise physiology and the tumor microenvironment. Research areas include exercise physiology, oncology, cardiology, and immunology. Sturgeon has published research related to animal models of cardio-oncology, randomized clinical trials across the breast cancer care continuum (prevention, treatment, survivorship), and epidemiological analyses of cardiovascular mortality in cancer patients.

“I’m excited to continue a tradition of excellence with the ONE group. We are a dedicated team invested in improving the lives of cancer patients, which could be through our clinical consultations with patients, or, cutting edge research projects,” said Sturgeon.

Before joining Penn State, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Center. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of California, Irvine. She has a master’s degree in translational research from the University of Pennsylvania, along with a master’s degree and PhD in exercise physiology from Temple University.

Sturgeon began her new role with the ONE Group in September and succeeds Kathryn Schmitz, who served as the director since 2019.

The ONE Group transforms cancer care by establishing evidence-based physical activity and nutrition interventions as the standard of care from the point of diagnosis forward. Their mobile-friendly website features a variety of videos that provide step-by-step fitness instructions suitable for a range of fitness levels. Exercises aim to increase mobility, improve balance, enhance flexibility and strengthen individuals. Additionally, Penn State Cancer Institute patients can request a consultation through the Cancer Assistance and Resource Education (CARE) Center.

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