Meet MI’s New Vice Chair, Research, Dr. Kate Hanneman

This month, the Department of Medical Imaging’s Vice Chair, Research position was filled by Associate Professor Dr. Kate Hanneman. Dr. Hanneman’s new role adds to a prestigious list of titles, including Deputy Lead of Sustainability, Joint Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI), Clinician Scientist, Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, and Director of Cardiac Imaging Research, JDMI.

While Dr. Hanneman officially started her path to becoming a physician during her post-secondary education, she knew she wanted to work in medicine long before that.

“I had planned to be a pediatrician when I was young, which was driven by the fact that I was hospitalized as a child,” Dr. Hanneman says of her early inspiration. “However, it wasn’t until I was in medical school that I stepped back and really thought about what area of medicine I wanted to work in.”

While completing her Doctor of Medicine (MD) at the University of Toronto (U of T), Dr. Hanneman was mentored and inspired by Dr. Nasir Jaffer, Professor & Abdominal Radiologist, JDMI. “I was really inspired by Dr. Jaffer during an elective in medical school, and it changed the trajectory of my career, as I ultimately decided to go into radiology,” she explains.

The mentorship she received from Dr. Jaffer pushed Dr. Hanneman to apply to the Radiology Residency program and after getting accepted into the program, she met another future mentor of hers, Dr. Elsie Nguyen, Associate Professor, Division Lead, Cardiothoracic Imaging & Vice Chair, onSIDE.

“When I discovered cardiac imaging, it was love at first sight,” Dr. Hanneman says. “After working with Dr. Nguyen, I decided to pursue cardiothoracic imaging as my fellowship at the Stanford University, just as she had. I was inspired to follow in her footsteps.”

After completing her fellowship, Dr. Hanneman was recruited back to U of T’s Department of Medical Imaging, and immediately she knew she wanted to focus part of her career on research. For the first few years of her faculty appointment, Dr. Hanneman was busy completing her Master in Epidemiology to strengthen her research methodology skills.

While most of her career as both a clinician scientist and researcher has focused on cardiac imaging, Dr. Hanneman has a broader focus for her role as Vice Chair, Research, including promoting early and mid-career faculty and trainees, developing a research mentorship program, strengthening multi-disciplinary collaboration across the city, and supporting the development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in imaging. She is also interested in encouraging and fostering new areas of research including the link between environmental sustainability and imaging which has been a recent focus in Dr. Hanneman’s own research program.

“I’ve always been interested in climate change and environmental sustainability, but did not appreciate the link between my role as a radiologist and climate change until recently,” she explains. “Within the last few years, the medical community has more broadly started discussing sustainability within health care.”

Her passion for environmental sustainability can already be seen in her current work, including a project she’s working on with radiology resident Dr. Fadi Ibrahim that he recently presented at the Radiological Society of North America’s (RSNA) Annual Meeting this past November, titled “Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emission Savings Associated with Implementation of an Abbreviated Cardiac MRI Protocol.” The project looked at the positive impact of shortening cardiac MRI protocols with respect to the amount of energy used and associated greenhouse gas emissions.

With her research already focusing on environmental sustainability, Dr. Hanneman hopes to be able to improve sustainability within the department of Medical Imaging as well as disseminate knowledge in this area across the medical imaging field. Her interest in sustainability comes from not only her education and awareness of energy output in radiology, but also from her role as a parent.

“I think about what kind of world I’m leaving for my kids and for future generations,” she says. “Keeping that focus in my mind drives my research and education goals.”

While her sights are set for her research program, Dr. Hanneman also has a clear picture for how her first year as Vice Chair, Research will look, and it includes a lot of collaboration and development of relationships to support the department’s researchers. Dr. Hanneman stresses the importance of creating multidisciplinary research teams not just across radiology, but across the entire healthcare system and between different institutions, while also prioritizing research opportunities within the department. Her goals include increasing the amount of successful external grant funding and promotion of researchers in the department and their research successes through social media.

Dr. Hanneman completed her Bachelor of Science with Distinction from the University of Alberta in 2005, before completing her Doctor of Medicine at the University of Toronto (U of T). She completed her Diagnostic Radiology Residency at U of T and a Fellowship in Cardiovascular Imaging at Stanford University followed by a Master of Public Health, Epidemiology, from Harvard University.

Dr. Hanneman holds multiple external leadership positions including Chair of RSNA’s Annual Meeting Program Planning Committee, Co-Chair of the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) Sustainability Working Group, and Chair of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)’s sustainability committee. She has also received numerous prestigious awards and honours throughout her career, most recently including the RSNA Honored Educator award in 2023 and CAR Rising Star Award in 2023.

Dr. Hanneman officially started her role as VC, Research on December 1, 2023. Congratulations on this incredible achievement!