Professor Karen Canfell is a cancer epidemiologist whose work has impacted cancer policy and implementation of cancer control strategies for multiple cancers, nationally and internationally. She is a Professor of Public Health and NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Cancer Elimination Collaboration (CEC), School of Public Health, University of Sydney. She holds a D.Phil. in epidemiology from the University of Oxford.  Her work was central to the 2017 transition of Australia's National Cervical Screening Program to primary HPV screening, and she is co-PI of the Compass trial, Australia's largest clinical trial and the first trial internationally of screening approaches in an HPV-vaccinated population. Her work supported the development of the World Health Organisation's global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer and WHO global guidelines for cervical screening. With collaborators, she leads the Elimination Partnership for Cervical Cancer in the Indo-Pacific (EPICC), supported by the Australian government and the Minderoo Foundation, and recently, she led global modelling to support development of product performance characteristics for therapeutic HPV vaccines. In 2024, she was made Companion of the Order of Australia in the King’s Birthday Honours for eminent service to medicine as an epidemiologist, particularly through cancer research, to tertiary education, and as a mentor and leader.