With the input of many colleagues, Professor Meiser has built a nationally and internationally recognised research program that assesses the psychosocial impact of genetic counselling and testing for hereditary disease; psychological adjustment of individuals at risk for hereditary disease; and the design and evaluation of interventions in the cancer genetic counselling setting, in particular decision aids as an innovative means of patient education. 

Broad Research Areas:
Cancer, Population Health, Genetics - Genome Analysis, Clinical Research, Preventive Medicine

Qualifications:
BSc, BA (Hons) PhD 

Website:

https://www.unsw.edu.au/medicine-health/our-schools/clinical-medicine/research-impact/research-groups/clinical-research/psychosocial-research-group

Society Memberships & Professional Activities:

• Executive Advisory Board, Breast Cancer Campaign, United Kingdom, 2012-2022
• Psychosocial Section Editor, European Journal of Human Genetics, 2011-2022
• Member of Editorial Board, Familial Cancer, 2013-2022
• Member of Scientific Committee for International Meetings on Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer, 2007-2022
• Chair, Human Research Ethics Committee, The Cancer Council of New South Wales, 2003-2012
• Cancer Research Committee, The Cancer Council of New South Wales, 2008-2012
• Secretary, Ethical and Social Issues Committee, Human Genetics Society of Australasia, 2005-2012
• Scientific Advisory Committee, Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Group (PoCoG), 2007-2010

Students supervised:

PhD

• Belinda Thewes, Fertility- and menopause-related information needs of younger women with breast cancer, 2006
• Nadine Kasparian, Psychosocial aspects of hereditary melanoma, 2006
• Claire Wakefield, A randomised trial of a decision aid for genetic testing for cancer susceptibility, 2007
• Michelle Peate, Development and evaluation of a fertility decision aid for young women with breast cancer, 2009
• Elvira Zilliacus, An evaluation of telehealth cancer genetic counselling, 2010
• Alex Wilde, Psychosocial impact of advances in genetic research in psychiatry and implications for health care, 2010
• Janan Karatas, Psychological impact of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, 2010
• Mona Taouk, Development of a psychometric tool to assess adolescent depression, 2013
• Mona Saleh, Beliefs about kinship and hereditary cancer in Arabic-Australians, 2014
• Holly Peay, Psychosocial implications of hereditary muscular dystrophies, 2015
• Sundresan Nackier, Familial Risk and Colorectal Cancer Screening in General Practice, 2017
• Aideen McInerney-Leo, Role of next generation sequencing in disease diagnostics, including psychosocial impact, 2017
• Amanda Willis, An assessment of the psychosocial and behavioural impact of new genomic technologies in the hereditary cancer setting, 2018
• Tatiane Yanes, Psychosocial and behavioural impact of genomic testing for polygenic breast cancer risk, 2020
• Lin Cheng, Patients’ and health professionals’ decision-making about preimplantation genetic testing, 2022

Doctorates in Clinical Psychology

• Kerry Tiller, A randomised trial of a decision aid for women at risk for ovarian cancer, 2003
• Shab Mireskandari, A study of partners of women at high risk for developing breast cancer, 2004

Masters in Clinical Psychology

• Jody Junk-Gibson, A content analysis of prenatal counselling of women with high-risk screening results, 2001
• Helen Gunn, An evaluation of support groups for younger women with breast cancer, 2003

Masters of Genetic Counselling

• Ruth Cowan, A needs analysis of men at increased risk for prostate cancer, 2006
• Stephanie Burcher, Survey of oncology health professionals regarding their experiences with providing treatment-focused genetic testing for women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, 2011
• Alexandra Fleming, Health professional attitudes to direct to consumer genetic testing, 2011
• Amanda Willis, Couples’ preferences for receiving information about prenatal screening, 2013
• Radhika Ragkumar, Psychosocial aspects of genetic counselling in Tamil clients, 2014
• Yanni Chen, Exploring clinician attitudes about using aspirin for risk reduction in people with Lynch Syndrome, 2015
• Morgan Rice, Evaluation of evidenced-based resources to facilitate decision-making about risk-reducing medication for breast cancer risk, 2016
• Cassandra MacDonald, Evaluation of evidence-based consumer resources to facilitate decision making about risk reducing medication for bowel cancer risk, 2017
• Laura Wedd, Psychological impact of reclassification of pathogenicity of unclassified variants, 2018
• Gillian Gregory, Communication analysis of genetic counselling for polygenic breast cancer risk: A quantitative study, 2018

Masters by Research

• Ingrid Sinnerbrink, Follow up of children detected prenatally with chromosomal changes of uncertain significance, 2011

Honours

• Bronwyn Calford, The content and process of telehealth cancer genetic counselling, 2010
• Sophie Putt, Psychological and behavioural impact of genetic testing for bipolar risk: A qualitative study, 2018

 Independent Learning Projects

• Paboda Ratnayake, Information dissemination preferences of families at high risk for breast cancer, 2009
• Si Si Zhou, Attitudes of health professionals towards predictive genetic testing of healthy people for susceptibility for depression risk, 2011
• Justin Chau, High School Sun Protection Study, 2011
• Lilian Zou, Exploring beliefs about hereditary depression amongst Chinese-Australians, 2012
• Mimi Zu, Exploring beliefs about hereditary depression amongst Anglo- Australians, 2012
• Ben Storey, Attitudes and information needs regarding next generation sequencing of cancer patients attending hereditary cancer clinic, 2012
• Michelle Wong, Development of low literacy decision aid for women considering prenatal screening, 2013
• Roger Liang, Exploring clinician attitudes towards somatic tumour mutation testing, 2015
• Pierre Hemming, Oncologists’ evaluations of a telephone genetic counselling service for women with ovarian cancer considering genetic testing, 2017
• Lup Lo, Risk of schizophrenia in relatives of individuals affected by schizophrenia: A meta-analysis, 2018
• Melissa Cullen, Implications of genomic risk information in  people at genetic risk of schizophrenia: A qualitative study, 2018 
• Kuheli Das Gupta, Communication analysis of genetic counselling for polygenic breast cancer risk: A qualitative study, 2019