Rate My Professor Renee Carey

Dr Renee Carey is a Senior Lecturer in the Curtin School of Population Health within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University, a position she has held since July 2014. She also serves as Senior Research Fellow in the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Western Australia. Carey obtained her PhD in Psychology from Murdoch University in 2011 and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with Honours. Her research expertise lies in occupational and cancer epidemiology, focusing on estimating the prevalence of exposure to carcinogens among Australian workers and calculating the future burden of cancer from occupational and lifestyle factors. As chief investigator, she has secured six grants totaling over $2 million from funders including the National Health and Medical Research Council and Cancer Council WA. Notable projects encompass the Australian Workplace Exposures Study series (AWES and AWES2), quantifying lung cancer risks from welding fumes in Western Australia's mining industry, and interventions to reduce cancers from occupational diesel exhaust and silica exposure.

Carey's key publications demonstrate her impact in the field. These include 'The Australian Work Exposures Study: Prevalence of occupational exposure to diesel exhaust' (2016, 48 citations), 'The future excess fraction of occupational cancer among males in the British population' (2017, 27 citations), 'Prevalence of exposure to occupational carcinogens among bricklayers' (2018), 'Prevalence of exposure to multiple occupational carcinogens in Australia' (2020, 21 citations), 'Lifestyle and occupational factors associated with completed suicide' (2019, 15 citations), 'Occupational exposure to welding fume in Australian workplaces' (2026), 'Mortality and Cancer Incidence After Exposure to Blue Asbestos in Childhood: A Further 10 Years of Follow-Up' (2025), and 'The future burden of silicosis and lung cancer among tunnel construction workers in Australia' (2025, 13 citations). Her studies have informed policy on workplace hazards, such as projections of 10,000 future lung cancer cases from silica dust and high welding fume exposures affecting 46,000 Australian welders. In 2024, Carey was awarded Most Prolific Media Commentator for the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Curtin Research and Engagement Awards.