A nearly 30-year career at IDRC has given long-time research officer Brenda Lee Wilson the opportunity to pursue her passion.

Brenda Lee Wilson has a passion for information — for finding information, organizing it, sharing it. Which is why she was delighted with her first job at IDRC, in 1978.

“I was a multilingual document analyst in the library,” she explains, “which at the time was very high tech. It had the only computer in IDRC, the collections were automated, and we were building a database. My job was to scan incoming materials and summarize their contents. It was an incredible job for someone just out of university. I was exposed to so much information!”

After her stint in the library, Wilson pursued her thirst for information by becoming research assistant to the director of tIDRC's Social Sciences Division.

“I helped her sort through huge amounts of information to get to what was most important,” Wilson says. “Other directors saw what I was doing and wanted their own research assistants.”

That is how Brenda Lee Wilson became IDRC’s first research officer. In the early 1990s, working for the director general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, she saw the birth of sustainable development as a concept. In her next position, she worked closely with Luc Mougeot in the Cities Feeding People program, the genesis of IDRC’s extensive urban agriculture program. Wilson reported to management on program activities, summarized research, organized meetings and forums, and helped support IDRC-funded researchers. One of the responsibilities she enjoyed most was helping young university students.

“Every year we’d have an intern come in who was working on a Masters or PhD,” she says. “Their supervisor and our team leader were constantly travelling, so the interns worked very closely with me. I enjoyed it because they had so much energy and commitment. Now Alice Hovorka is a professor, Kathleen Flynn-Dapaah is an IDRC program officer, Catherine Kilelu has become a research officer, and Kristina Taboulchanas organized IDRC’s contribution to the World Urban Forum.”

Recently, Wilson began to make a gradual transition to retirement. She has taken an assignment in Human Resources and is working part-time “I’m researching what other government agencies and departments are doing about HR issues,” she explains.

She’s excited about the possibilities retirement will open up for her, but concedes that she’ll miss IDRC.

“I grew up at IDRC, with IDRC,” she says. “A lot of people did great work here over the years, a lot of people are still doing great work, and young people are still attracted to development. They keep coming.”

A long-time IDRC Research Officer, Brenda Lee Wilson recently moved to policy development in the Human Resources Division, Ottawa.

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