Nursing

Associate Professor Cannas Kwok

BHS (Nursing), MPH, MEd, PhD

Associate Professor Cannas Kwok is a senior academic and researcher with extensive experience in teaching, curriculum development and research. After her completion of PhD, Cannas has received the prestigious ‘Early Career Development Fellowship’ from the Cancer Institute NSW to continue her ground-breaking work in breast cancer screening research.

Prior to employment at Charles Sturt University, Cannas has held a number of senior leadership appointments including Director of Academic Programs (Post-graduate), Deputy Director of Research and Academic Course Adviser at School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University.

Cannas has successfully led multiple research projects to completion and has a track record in ensuring research outcomes with over 50 peer-reviewed publications and over 30 conference presentations. Cannas has international standing as a leading expert in breast cancer screening, she is currently ranked number 1 in the SciVal list of Top 500 researchers in the Asia/Pacific region and number 3 in the world in this area.

Cannas is part of the editorial board for Asian Pacific Oncology of Nursing and Cancer Nursing.

Cannas has extensive teaching experience in nursing education in both undergraduate and post graduate. Over the last few years, her teaching has been focused on evidence based health care practices in post graduate. As an experienced academic in higher education, she always ensures the content of the subjects she taught was clinically-relevant and evidenced-based. The learning materials she designs are driven by technology and innovation.

In 2021, Cannas co-led the development of a new curriculum the Master of Nursing Practice which was successfully approved by Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council as an accredited program leading to nursing registration.

In her previous employment, Cannas has received two successful teaching grants in 2022 and being awarded by Higher Education Academy as Senior Fellow, a recognition of outstanding teaching and learning achievements in higher education.

She is currently supervising 3 PhD students and has supervised 6 students to completion [2 PhD, 2 MN, 2 BN (Hons)].

In collaboration with a team of researcher and clinicians, Cannas has recently published a textbook titled “Stories in Chronic Illness and Disability, Living with Breast Cancer”. This textbook will be used in undergraduate nursing program to provide a comprehensive overview of challenges that health care professionals encounter while providing holistic care to patients with chronic disease and disability.

Cannas has strong passion in cancer screening and survivorship research particularly among immigrant communities. Over the years, she has published over 50 articles in international peer-reviewed journals. As a recognised leader in the field, she has been invited to be an advisor for a number of breast cancer screening promotion programs in Sydney and Victoria.

Cannas has developed the first culturally sensitive instrument (BCSBQ) in the world examining immigrant women’s breast cancer screening behaviors which has been validated and published in 8 languages. This instrument has been highly recognised and widely used by international researchers across many cultural groups.

Currently, Cannas is leading teams of national and international researchers to examine cervical screening practices among women from 6 cultural groups in Australia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Korea and Dubai.

While planning to expand her research area to other cancer screenings including bowel and prostate, Cannas is exploring the opportunities to establish research teams and collaborations to examine cancer screening practices among people in regional area.