Swetha Kannan

Swetha is a PhD student funded by the Cambridge Trust's Cambridge International Scholarship. Her research primarily focuses on the development, implementation and acceptance of multifactorial risk prediction models for breast and ovarian cancer in India. Swetha holds a first-class BSc(Hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Edinburgh and an MPhil in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Most of Swetha’s initial academic career was largely in clinical/discovery sciences, focused on understanding the biology of cancer and improving treatments for the disease. More recently, her interests shifted towards public health, cancer prevention/early detection and policy-guided frameworks for equitable cancer care, leading Swetha to shape her current and future career in this area.

Growing up in India, Swetha gained painfully real insights into health inequalities in the country and impact they had on patient/caregiver wellbeing and gained first-hand experience of the same when her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. These experiences have led her to strongly believe that quality and timely healthcare must be a fundamental right and not a privilege. As someone who identifies as a disabled person of colour, Swetha’s secondary research focus is on improving accessibility to cancer screening/care services and psychosocial support for individuals with physical/mental disabilities and/or from marginalised communities. She hopes that her PhD will lay some of the groundwork in this area alongside developing a novel framework for accessible personalised medicine in low and middle income countries.