Dr Elke Hacker is a world-leading post-doctoral researcher in the skin cancer field at Queensland University of Technology. Over the last ten years, she has expanded her research from animal models to human clinical studies, which have generated results that improve our understanding of the interplay between sun exposure, genetic-susceptibility and skin cancer risk.

Dr Hacker’s awards include a NHMRC training fellowship (2009-2013, $285,000) and more recently, an Advance Queensland mid-career fellowship (2017-2020, $600,000).  She has also received two successful cancer council project grants as lead investigator, including ‘New Technologies in Skin Cancer Prevention’ (2015-2017, $200,000) and ‘The response of human melanocytes in vivo to sunlight’ (2011-2013, $182,500). Dr Hacker was awarded internal grants from QUT including IHBI Collaborative Research Grants (2010, 2016) and the QUT Strategic Pilot Grants in June 2018. This work has and continues to involve the development, implementation and completion of randomised controlled trials, as well as feasibility, focus groups and pilot studies testing new and innovative technologies in skin cancer prevention. She has also published over 30 research articles in leading journals and has an H-index of 14.

Dr Hacker has an international reputation for leading collaborations which further define the pathways to melanoma, whilst examining the relationship between germline and somatic mutations in a series of melanomas collected from Spanish, Australia and Austrian patients. Her work has evolved from exploring carcinogenesis to examining preventative approaches including post-sunburn treatments with DNA repair enzymes that could protect against skin cancer. Dr Hacker’s research examining the impact of sunscreen and sunscreen reminder technology are both listed in the top 5% of research outputs scored by Altmetric.