Professor Robert Steele was Professor of Surgery at the University of Dundee between 1996 and 2023. His main interests are the treatment of and screening for colorectal cancer. Having led the UK demonstration pilot that was used to inform the decision to introduce national screening programmes throughout the United Kingdom, he served as the Clinical Director of the Scottish Colorectal Cancer Screening Programme until 2023 and has published extensively in this area.

He has chaired several NHS Quality and Healthcare Improvement groups related to colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer screening and he chaired the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) group that developed the first colorectal cancer guidelines. He is a past member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and served as Editor of “The Surgeon” for ten years. He is past Chair of the Health Improvement, Protection and Services (HIPS) Research Committee of the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist’s Office, and past President of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland. He was co-founder and co-director of the Scottish Cancer Prevention Network and is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of the Scottish Cancer Foundation. In 2016, he was appointed as Independent Chair of the UK National Screening Committee in which position he served until 2022. He currently chairs the Research and Innovation Group of the National Screening Oversight Board of Scotland.

In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Membership of the Faculty of Public Health and was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2018 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences and in 2022 he received an honorary Fellowship of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2018.