Samantha Mayo RN, PhD

My research advances an understanding of how to best support people living with and beyond a cancer diagnosis

Dr. Samantha Mayo’s research program focuses on optimizing the long-term health of people with hematological (blood) cancers, by addressing the psychosocial and functional consequences of disease and its treatment. Using longitudinal and mixed methods approaches, her research characterizes the patterns of patient and caregiver outcomes with a goal of developing health service interventions to support coping, self-management, and quality of life. Dr. Mayo has published extensively on the topic of cancer-related cognitive impairment, a common issue among people with cancer characterized by difficulties in thinking abilities, such as memory and concentration.

Dr. Mayo holds the RBC Financial Group Chair in Oncology Nursing Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto. She is co-lead of the non-pharmacological intervention subgroup of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) Neurological Complications Study Group and a contributing member of the Oncology Nursing Society Putting Evidence into Practice panel on Cognitive Impairment. Her research has been funded by the Oncology Nursing Foundation, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

RBC Financial Group Chair – Oncology Nursing Research

The RBC Financial Group Chair in Oncology Nursing Research is supported jointly through affiliations with Cancer Care Ontario, the Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division), University Health Network, and the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. The RBC Chair in Oncology Nursing Research was Canada’s first endowed chair in oncology research.

Dr. Sam Mayo was appointed to hold the chair in July 2019. She leads research that seeks to optimize the long-term health of cancer survivors, by understanding patterns and predictors of late and long-term effects, investigating biological mechanisms and designing interventions to mitigate the negative impacts of these effects. Her work has a particular focus on cancer-related cognitive impairment (“chemobrain”) after treatment for blood cancers.