Department Spotlight: Meet Eileen Brosnan
The Department of Medical Imaging oversees and facilitates the academic path from resident to fellow to faculty member. A huge part of this spectrum includes managing academic appointments and senior promotions under Eileen Brosnan, Academic Appointments & Promotion Coordinator.
Originally studying and working in the arts, Eileen’s path to Medical Imaging was anything but linear. She started her education by getting her undergrad in in English Literature and Drama and after a short stint in theatre, returned to school to get her Masters in Humanities from Memorial University of Newfoundland and finally her Masters in Library and Information Studies from the University of British Columbia (UBC). It was this last degree that would prove most helpful in Eileen’s current role in the department.
“My role involves a lot of information finding and gathering, which is what I loved about Library and Information Studies so much,” Eileen says. “I really enjoy research and academia, which is why I took this route with my education and career.”
After having lived and studied on both Canadian coasts, Eileen moved to Toronto in 2018 and was referred to a contract position as an Administrative Coordinator in the University of Toronto’s (UofT) Radiation Oncology Department where she worked until 2021, when she started in the Department of Medical Imaging.
“In Radiation Oncology, I worked with a lot of trainees and I was able to follow them through residency, fellowship and eventually to faculty positions, which I really enjoyed,” Eileen recalls. “In Medical Imaging, I get to see some of our former fellows take on faculty roles, and also work with current faculty through the steps of appointments and promotions, so it’s been a really neat continuum I’ve been able to follow.”
In her current role, Eileen supports all processes involved in academic appointments and promotions, from onboarding new faculty, continuing faculty appointment reviews, cross-appointments with other university departments and junior and senior promotions, all of which come with their own unique processes and requirements.
With all her role entails, Eileen took on a lot of unfamiliar processes and navigated some outdated filing systems when she started in the department, challenges she was able to get through relatively easily with her background and passion for fact-finding and streamlining. Reinstating lost institutional knowledge from the COVID-19 pandemic into the processes was one of the first things Eileen focused on as a way to make academic appointments and promotions more efficient and consistent and to keep records up to date.
“Before I joined the department, things had previously changed suddenly from in-office and paper files to remote work and electronic files, so there were obviously going to be gaps in record keeping,” Eileen says. “But pivoting to records management and maintaining new processes was a challenge I really enjoyed.”
Eileen also enjoys being able to support faculty through their latter years in academia, from appointment to promotion to retirement. “It’s really neat to see our faculty from fellow all the way through to retirement,” Eileen says. “We see them coming to us as fellows or from other universities, and I get to support them through the senior part of their careers and learn so much about their careers and backgrounds through that process.”
Going forward, Eileen plans to continue reviewing and improving processes to make them easier, more streamlined and more transparent. Outside of the department, she plans to continue volunteering on the board of Vancouver’s Alley Theatre and as a volunteer archivist at Toronto’s ArQuives