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Leslie R. Schover, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with a special interest in sexual problems and infertility-related distress after cancer. She was born in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Brown University in 1974, Magna cum laude with honors in psychology. She received a PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA in 1979 and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in sex therapy and sex research at SUNY at Stony Brook. She was an Instructor in psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine for a year in 1981 and Assistant Professor of Psychology in Urology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1982-1986. She then was Staff Psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation until 1999 when she returned to the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center where she is currently Professor of Behavioral Science. She is the author of 95 peer-reviewed journal articles, 32 book chapters, and 4 books, as well as the patient education booklets published by the American Cancer Society, Sexuality and Cancer: for the Woman with Cancer and Her Partner, and Sexuality and Cancer: for the Man with Cancer and His Partner. In 2004 she co-chaired a scientific conference on “Parenthood after Cancer” focusing on a variety of topics related to cancer and fertility. The proceedings were published in March, 2005 as a Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monograph. She   completed projects funded by the American Cancer Society to develop an internet-based version of a sexual counseling problem for couples after prostate cancer, and by the National Cancer Institute to develop and evaluate a peer counseling program on reproductive health after breast cancer, in partnership with Sisters Network®, Inc., a national advocacy program for African-American Breast cancer survivors. She alsoy completed a small business grant to produce and evaluate a computerized educational tool and decision aid on banking sperm before cancer treatment, Banking on Fatherhood after Cancer. She currently is funded by the National Cancer Institute as principal investigator or site investigator for two small business grants; one to develop a computerized, multimedia intervention for women’s sexual problems after cancer, Tendrils: A Sexual Renewal Program for Women after Cancer and the other to create and evaluate a computerized, multimedia psychoeducational intervention to prevent or treat men's sexual problems related to cancer and its treatment, Second Manhood:  A Multimedia Intervention for Male Sexual Dysfunction after Cancer. She is conducting a pilot project on preventing sexual dysfunction in breast cancer survivors starting on aromatase inhibitors, with a secondary goal of increasing adherence to medication.

Dr. Schover’s research interests include developing interventions to ameliorate sexual problems and distress about infertility after cancer, as well as understanding the role of reproductive health problems after cancer in overall quality of life. She is particularly interested in evidence-based methods of disseminating cognitive-behavioral interventions focusing on reproductive issues to patients and survivors in the community. She is also interested in ways to increase the effectiveness of internet-based psychosocial interventions.

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Last updated: 3/13/2013