Putterman had built a career in marketing and business development at the Ontario Centres of Excellence before her son's autism diagnosis as a toddler pulled her toward advocacy, including years of volunteer work on research-centre governance committees.
Joining the Translational Research Program in 2017, she sat alongside physicians, research coordinators, undergraduates and other mid-career returners, wondering, “I haven’t been to school since the 1980s. Can I even do this?” She graduated in 2019, and went on to work part-time at McMaster University's CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research.
She helped design a family–scientist research training course that has since trained more than 600 participants, and is now a family engagement lead at CAMH, part of an inaugural team embedding patients' and families' lived experience directly into research.
Reported from Advocate to impact: how one alum turned her passion into a career, by Jenni Bozec (U of T Alumni News, April 29, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/advocate-impact-how-one-alum-turned-her-passion-career