Dr. Brenda O’Neill was appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs on Oct. 1, 2020. She also holds a position as Professor in the Department of Political Science.
Her research addresses several topics including political behaviour and gender and politics, focused largely on Canada. Her most recent research has examined gender and party leadership and the role of feminist identification in shaping support for sovereignty among women in Quebec. She has held several SSHRC grants and recently held the Thelma Margaret Horte Fellowship in Women and Society at the University of Calgary. Between 2017 to 2020, she served as English-language editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science.
Dr. O’Neill has held several academic leadership positions, most recently as the Department Head of Political Science at the University of Calgary. At the University of Manitoba, she served as Graduate Chair of the Department of Political Studies and later as Provost of the University of Manitoba’s University College. She is the recipient of several awards in recognition of her teaching, research and service contributions, including the Jill Vickers Paper Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association and the University of Manitoba Merit Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research, Teaching and Service.
She has held academic appointments at a number of institutions over the years, including Red Deer College, the University of Alberta, the University of Lethbridge, the University of Manitoba and the University of Calgary, explained partly by the fact that she is one half of an academic couple. After obtaining a BA in Economics and Politics at Brock University, she completed an MA in Economics and then an MA in Public Policy and Administration at McMaster University, followed by a PhD in Political Science at the University of British Columbia.