Penny Webb

Professor Penny Webb has an MA in biochemistry from Cambridge University and a D.Phil in cancer epidemiology from Oxford University. She spent a year working on the Monograph’s Program at the International Agency for Research in Cancer in Lyon, France, before moving to Brisbane in 1995. Professor Webb taught epidemiology in the Public health Program at the University of Queensland for 5 years and, during this time, wrote the first edition of her highly successful textbook ‘Essential Epidemiology: An introduction for Students and health Professionals’ which is now in its fifth edition and has sold more than 40,000 copies worldwide (Webb et al., CUP 2005, 2011, 2017, 2020, 2024).

Professor Webb moved to full-time research at the QIMR Berghofer in 2000 and now heads the Gynaecological Cancers Group which she established in 2008. She is a founding member of the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study (AOCS) Group and the Australian National Endometrial Cancer Study (ANECS) Group, principal investigator of the Ovarian Cancer Prognosis and Lifestyle (OPAL) Study and leads studies that aim to identify factors that influence risk of, and survival following ovarian and endometrial cancer.