Stacey A. Kenfield, ScD, is an epidemiologist, public health researcher, and professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) whose research looks at chronic disease prevention and survivorship. Kenfield’s research focuses on the association between modifiable behaviors (exercise, nutrition, and other lifestyle factors) and the risk of developing cancer as well as its progression after diagnosis. She seeks to identify opportunities to improve clinical and quality-of-life outcomes for patients diagnosed with cancer.
As part of the UCSF Urology and Epidemiology & Biostatistics departments, she has worked primarily on prostate cancer to gather evidence of the associations between lifestyle factors and the risk of lethal prostate cancer. She looks to translate the findings into behavioral interventions to improve cancer survivorship. She received the Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award in 2012. Kenfield was appointed as the Helen Diller Family Chair in Population Science for Urological Cancer at UCSF in 2016 and the Associate Chair of Research in Urology at UCSF in 2022.
Kenfield has led large cohort studies with cancer patients to find the connections between lifestyle factors and cancer outcomes. She has also focused on digital health behavioral interventions among cancer patients and survivors. In particular, Kenfield is the principal investigator of two National Institutes of Health-funded randomized control trials examining the effects of exercise in men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer and the effects of digital health lifestyle interventions for men choosing radical prostatectomy.
She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in Physiological Science in 2000, her Master of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health in Epidemiology in 2003, and her Doctorate of Science (Sc.D.) degree in 2006 from the Harvard School of Public Health. She resides in San Francisco, California.