Dr Chris Jacobs
About
Biography
Chris is a Registered Nurse and Registered Genetic Counsellor. After qualifying as a nurse at the Middlesex Hospital in London, she specialised in critical care at the Royal London Hospital.
In 1996, her career shifted to genetic counselling, first working in a research role and then moving to a clinical role. She completed her MSc in 2003 and went on to specialise in cancer genetics. She was Consultant in Cancer Genetics and Guy’s Hospital, London from 2006 to 2015. During that time, she was also the clinical lead for cancer genetics for South East England. Throughout her clinical career, Chris was involved in research. She secured an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship to undertake a PhD in clinician patient communication about hereditary breast cancer at University College London. She was awarded her PhD in 2018.
Chris took up the position of Senior Lecturer at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Australia in 2018. There, she was instrumental in establishing a new discipline of Genetic Counselling involving developing and teaching a new Masters and building a research programme in genetic counselling. Chris continues to be affiliated to UTS in an honorary capacity.
In May 2023, Chris was appointed to the role of Associate Professor in Genetic and Genomic Counselling at the University of Surrey to develop education and research in this area.
ResearchResearch interests
Chris is a mixed methods researcher who is interested in research into all aspects of genetic and genomic counselling, including communication between patients, their families and health professionals; cancer genetics; the impact of genetic and genomic testing and counselling; integrating genomics into mainstream care; and behaviour change.
Research interests
Chris is a mixed methods researcher who is interested in research into all aspects of genetic and genomic counselling, including communication between patients, their families and health professionals; cancer genetics; the impact of genetic and genomic testing and counselling; integrating genomics into mainstream care; and behaviour change.
Supervision
Completed postgraduate research projects I have supervised
Chris has extensive experience at supervising Master of Genetic Counselling student projects She has supervised PhD students in the following areas:
- Building capacity of palliative care clinicians in genetics and genomics,
- Developing a core outcome set for carrier screening
- Developing a model of genetic counselling for people with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and/or frontotemporal dementia.