Board of Directors

Professor James Kench, MB BS, BSc(Med), FRCPA.
Local Pathology Director, Sydney Local Health District, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Head of Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

Professor James Kench, MB BS, DMedSc, FRCPA, graduated in medicine from the University of Sydney in 1986. He commenced training in anatomical pathology in 1988 at Westmead Hospital then completed his training at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney NSW, before being awarded his Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 1993. He is also a member of the International Academy of Cytology and International Fellow of the College of American Pathologists.

After working as a staff specialist at St Vincent’s and Westmead Hospitals, in 2009 Professor Kench became Clinical Director of Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology (formerly Anatomical Pathology) at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, where he is currently also Local Pathology Director-RPA. He was appointed as a Clinical Professor at University of Sydney in 2009 and has subspecialty expertise in prostatic, pancreatic and hepatic pathology. Professor Kench has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles plus several books and book chapters, including co-authorship of the Prostate Cancer chapter in the 2022 WHO Blue Book for Urinary and Male Genital Tumours. He has a longstanding research collaboration with the Prostate Cancer Group at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and is an Executive member of the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre-NSW.

Professor Kench has been actively involved in structured reporting initiatives since 2008, including as lead author for the national pathology guidelines on prostate cancer, Chair of the National Structured Pathology Reporting Project for 4 years from 2014, member of the ICCR Dataset Steering Committee for 8 years and ICCR Board for 4 years. He is also a member of the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group (ANZUP) Scientific Advisory Committee, the Australian Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry Steering Committee and its Hepatobiliary Subcommittee, and the NSW Cancer Council Prostate and Colorectal Cancer Expert Advisory Panels.

Professor Kieran Sheahan, MB, BCh, BAO, BSc, FRCPI, FFPath, FCAP, FFRCPath.
Consultant Histopathologist at St. Vincent's University Hospital (SVUH), Dublin
Clinical Professor at University College Dublin School of Medicine

Professor Kieran Sheahan MB, BCh, BAO, B.Sc, FRCPI, FFPath, FCAP, FFRCPath, is a Consultant Histopathologist at St. Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH), Dublin, and is Full Clinical Professor at University College Dublin School of Medicine. He is also Adjuvant Professor of Pathology at Boston University Medical School. He is a Director of the Centre for Colorectal Disease, SVUH. He initiated the involvement of the Faculty of Pathology (RCPI) as a sustaining member of ICCR in 2018 and has been a Councillor and Board Director (ICCR) since. He was a lead in developing the National Histopathology Quality Improvement Programme in Ireland in 2009 which included standardisation of cancer reporting. He was on the ICCR authoring committee for the colorectal cancer and colorectal polyp cancer datasets.

He is author of over 200 original publications in peer-reviewed biomedical journals, and numerous reviews and book chapters. He is co-editor of Morson & Dawson’s Gastrointestinal Pathology (6th edition). His research interests include prognostic and predictive markers in colorectal cancer, familial colorectal cancer, in particular Lynch Syndrome, the pathology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and the application of molecular genetic techniques and AI in colorectal pathology.

Professor Annie Nga-Yin Cheung, MD, PhD.
Laurence L T Hou Professorship in Anatomical Molecular Pathology and Clinical Professor at the Department of Pathology, The University of Hong Kong (HKU)
Director of the HKU Cervical Cytology Laboratory and the University Pathology Laboratory (Molecular Pathology)
Chief of Service of Pathology, HKU-Shenzhen Hospital

Professor Annie Nga-Yin Cheung is Laurence L T Hou Professorship in Anatomical Molecular Pathology and Clinical Professor at the Department of Pathology, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). She is the key pathologist for gynecological histopathology and cytology in Queen Mary Hospital, Director of the HKU Cervical Cytology Laboratory and the University Pathology Laboratory (Molecular Pathology) as well as the Chief of Service of Pathology, HKU-Shenzhen Hospital.

Professor Cheung was a HKU MBBS graduate and continued her studies at HKU for her MD and PhD. She received her postgraduate gynecological pathology training in the University of Manchester, UK, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, USA. Professor Cheung’s research focuses on ovarian, endometrial and cervical cancers as well as gestational trophoblastic disease, aiming at investigating diagnostic and prognostic markers as well as molecular targets for better therapy. Professor Cheung has received awards on education and research. She has over 250 publications and has contributed to chapters in the WHO Classification of Tumours of Female Reproductive Organs.

Professor Cheung is currently Standing Member, Editorial Board of 5th Edition WHO Classification of Tumours, Commissioner, Lancet Commission on Diagnostics and Chairman, Credentials and Appeals Committee, The Hong Kong College of Pathologists. She is also the Advisor to Executive Board, Asian Oceania Research on Genital Infections and Neoplasia and Immediate Ex-President of The Hong Kong College of Pathologists. Professor Cheung has been President of Hong Kong Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology as well as Council Member of the International Federation for Cervical Pathology and Colposcopy and Council Member at Large of the International Society of Gynaecological Pathologists.

Associate Professor Kerryn Ireland-Jenkin, MBBS, MBA, MClinLdshp, FRCPA, MIAC, GAICD.
Medical Director of Pathology, and Director of Anatomical Pathology, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia

Associate Professor Kerryn Ireland-Jenkin, MBBS, MBA, MClinLdshp, FRCPA, MIAC, GAICD, graduated in Medicine from the University of Melbourne. She undertook training in Anatomical Pathology at Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Women’s and Children’s Hospitals and Austin Hospital in Melbourne, being awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 2000.

Associate Professor Ireland-Jenkin completed a cytopathology Fellowship at the Victorian Cytology Service (VCS), before working at Melbourne Pathology, becoming the Director of Cytopathology. Since 2006 she has worked as an anatomical pathologist at Austin Health, in Melbourne, becoming both Director of Anatomical Pathology and Medical Director of Pathology in March 2020. Her areas of special interest are in gynaecologic, breast and placental pathology. She is an honorary consultant gynaecologic and obstetric pathologist at Mercy Hospital for Women, and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She was Head of Unit of the Victorian Perinatal Autopsy Service (VPAS) at the Royal Women’s Hospital (2016-2018), and has been a member of the RCPA Board of Professional Practice and Quality (BPPQ) since 2020.

Associate Professor Ireland-Jenkin has been a member of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) expert committee for structured pathology reporting of gynaecologic cancers since 2010, becoming series co-chair for gynaecologic oncology protocols in 2022. She has been a co-lead author of four RCPA gynaecologic cancer protocols.

* Kerryn Ireland-Jenkin is the second Australian Director as per constitutional requirements.

Professor Peter Schirmacher.
Director of the Institute of Pathology (IPH) of Heidelberg University (Germany)
Chairman of the German Society of Pathology and Council Member of the European Association of Pathology
Board member of the National Center of Tumor Diseases

Professor Peter Schirmacher is Director of the Institute of Pathology (IPH) of Heidelberg University (Germany) since 2004, Chairman of the German Society of Pathology and Council Member of the European Association of Pathology, Board member of the National Center of Tumor Diseases, member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Principle Investigator in many national and international consortia.

Professor Schirmacher studied Medicine at Mainz University (Germany) and Molecular Biology at Albert Einstein College, New York, received training and board certification in Pathology and Molecular Pathology at Mainz University and was Professor of Pathology at Cologne University from 1998 until 2004.

Professor Schirmacher’s scientific interest centres on liver and molecular pathology with specific emphasis on molecular pathogenesis of hepatobiliary cancer; he has contributed to over 600 publications and numerous guidelines mainly centring on these topics. Professor Schirmacher is coordinator of the Coordinative Research Center ‘Liver Cancer’ of the German Research Foundation involving three University Centres and about 50 Researchers. IPH is a Centre of Excellence of the ESP for Liver and Molecular Pathology.