Dean Debby Burshtyn, Renewed as Dean of the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

The Board’s decision was based on the recommendation of the President and received unanimous support of the review committee.  Debby’s re-appointment is a reflection of her steadfast commitment and effort to advance long-term, sustainable and positive change for graduate studies here at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). 

During her first term, Debby led initiatives in CGPS to update scholarship funding, to comprehensively review and revise governance structures, policy and practices with an EDI and student-centered lens, and prioritized collaboration and effective communication by CGPS with students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty and staff.  She created dedicated roles within CGPS to lead Indigenous student engagement, to oversee and elevate interdisciplinary research and to provide professional development opportunities to support student and postdoctoral scholars in their careers. The restructured graduate funding helped establish minimum guarantees for PhD students across the majority of PhD programs and faciliated recruitment by providing graduate programs more flexibility in creating funding packages.

Since coming to Saskatchewan in July 2020, she served as chair of the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies Task Force on Excellence in Graduate Programs and president of the Western Canadian Deans of Graduate Studies from 2022 to 2024.

Debby’s work in research and scholarship has been a tremendous asset to USask, and we are excited to have her continue in this role. In addition to her work as dean for the past five years, Debby also holds a position as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology in the College of Medicine.  Debby received her formal education at McGill University and the University of Toronto. She undertook postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the United States, where she studied check-point receptors on human killer cells, followed by 20 years at the University of Alberta. Her current research focuses on genetic variation in the population and responses to chronic virus infection with a focus on interplay with viral immune-evasion proteins of opportunistic pathogens in transplant patients, furthering her elite reputation in immunology in Canada.