Brenda Kirkby

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Brenda Kirkby, PhD

Associate Dean for Accreditation, Continuous Quality Improvement, and Strategic Planning
Professor of Behavioral Sciences

Brenda Kirkby, PhD, was appointed the associate dean of accreditation, quality assurance, and strategic planning for the School of Medicine (SOM) in August 2021. In that role, she oversees the preparation and timely submission of SOM accreditation documents, monitors the strategic planning initiatives established by the SOM, and ensures that a systematic process is followed to monitor compliance with accreditation standards as part of the quality assurance process for the SOM. In addition, Dr. Kirkby is the deputy chair of the Department of Physiology, Neuroscience, and Behavioral Sciences.

In the classroom, Dr. Kirkby teaches behavioral sciences in the pre-clinical and basic sciences curriculum (Year 1 students) and is the content manager for the discipline of behavioral sciences in the SOM. She has received multiple Student Government Association Outstanding Faculty Awards for her teaching.

Prior to her current role as associate dean, Dr. Kirkby served as an assistant dean of basic sciences in the SOM, helping to administer the basic sciences program by managing faculty who oversee the College System and assisting with accreditation documents for the SOM. She was appointed as an assistant dean of students in 2011 before becoming an assistant dean of basic sciences in 2015. Dr. Kirkby joined the SOM faculty as a professor of behavioral sciences in 2009.

She is the chair of the Learning Environment Committee, the chair of the Educational Resources Planning Group, and a longstanding member of SGU’s Institutional Review Board.

Dr. Kirkby received her PhD in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada and completed a four-year Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship within the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch (Unit on Positron Emission Tomography) at the National Institute of Mental Health at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.