Anne May

Anne May obtained her Master’s degree in Sciences of Human Movement (with distinction) at the Free University in Amsterdam in 2001. She obtained her Master of Science degree in Epidemiology at the Netherlands Institute of Health Sciences, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam in August 2006.
From June 2001 to December 2002 she worked as a (Sport-)Nutrition Scientist at Numico Research BV in Wageningen.
Anne May is involved in research regarding lifestyle, body composition, diet and cancer since 2003. From 2003-2007 she conducted her PhD research on the effects of physical exercise and cognitive-behavioural therapy in cancer patients at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), Julius Center. After completing her PhD, she continued working at the Julius Center. She is currently Director of Research at the Julius Center and works as Professor of Clinical Epidemiology of Cancer Survivorship. Moreover, she works as group leader  "Lifestyle and survivorship care" at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.

Her research focuses on optimal survivorship care for patients living with cancer with an emphasis on lifestyle interventions – from translational and clinical research to patient care. She is especially interested in effects of exercise in cancer patients, in the mediators of the effect and also in methodological aspects related to exercise-oncology research. For the latter she received a VENI grant from ZonMw (i.e., personal grant for outstanding researchers) entitled 'Novel research design and methodology for evaluating effects of physical exercise in patients with cancer’.

She is the PI of several ongoing (inter)national multi-center exercise-oncology RCTs (PREFERABLE (H2020-funded), PREFERABLE-II (Horizon Europe funded), PACT, PERFECT, UMBRELLA-FIT and PAM). She is also part of the research team of several cancer patient cohorts: PLCRC (colorectal cancer), UMBRELLA (breast cancer) and UNICIT (patients receiving immunotherapy), and is responsible for patient-reported outcomes and assessment of muscle mass. Last, she is involved in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study and was the scientific coordinator of an EC-funded research project investigating the relationship between physical activity, nutrition, alcohol, smoking, eating out of home and obesity (EPIC-PANACEA).