Over the course of her career, Edith Hillan has worked in clinical practice, research and education. She moved to the University of Toronto in 2001 and before this held a Personal Chair at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She holds the rank of full professor in the Lawrence S Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing where until recently she was Director of the Doctoral Programs (2018-22). From 2002-2004 Edith was Associate Dean, Academic Programs in the Lawrence S Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and from 2004-16 she served two successive terms as Vice-Provost at the University of Toronto. She is a Senior Fellow of Massey College and serves as a member of the Governing Board and Chair of the Governance and Nominating Committee.
Her previous research was mainly clinically based and she has led programs of research including women’s health after childbirth, pain relief in labour and the organization of care in the postnatal period. Her current research examines the health of women and newborns from a global perspective. She is particularly interested in technologies which can improve access to high quality healthcare in rural and remote settings and aim to end preventable deaths of mothers and neonates. Her research is highly interdisciplinary and is focused around the development of low cost ‘Clinic-in-a-Box’ technologies for the provision of emergency obstetric care and the support of preterm/low birthweight babies and Point of Care assays which allow high precision lab-based detection techniques to be taken directly to the individual, irrespective of the setting. This area of research is closely aligned with the Centre’s mission around practice change to promote health and health system sustainability.
Professor Hillan holds a PhD from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow , MPhil in Law & Ethics in Medicine from the Faculty of Law, University of Glasgow and a MSc from the University of Strathclyde.