Prior to Syracuse, Christina Leigh Docteur worked as an insurance claims adjuster. It was a good job but Docteur felt it wasn’t for her. In the back of her mind, she knew she wanted to work in a library and had toyed with the idea of attending a library school. She was browsing job ads when she came across a library assistant position at Syracuse.
“I’m a very impulsive person and I make life decisions in a single day,” says Docteur. “I saw the position and I talked to my boyfriend at the time and I said, ‘I want to apply for this and apply for grad school.’ So I applied to the position first, and when I got the position, I applied to grad school. I left a decent job in the insurance industry to come back to school.”
Docteur worked as a library assistant from 1999 until 2002 when she was hired as a Research Analyst for the Center for Natural Language Processing at Syracuse. In 2003, Docteur earned her MLS.
The following year, Docteur transitioned to the Maxwell School as the Grant Development Administrator. In her new role, Docteur was responsible for facilitating grant development for academic departments, centers and institutes, and individual faculty and graduate students at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She conducted research on funders and grant opportunities, compiled proposals, and developed budgets among other responsibilities.
Docteur felt she had more to learn and in 2008 started the Doctor of Professional Studies Program in Information Management. She completed the program in 2011.
In 2012, Docteur became an instructor at Syracuse teaching introduction to grant writing. It was an advanced undergraduate course teaching students the role of a grant writing consultant for nonprofits.
Docteur worked as the Grant Development Administrator for 14 years. Then, in 2018, she transitioned to lead a new unit in Syracuse University’s Office of Research as the Director of Proposals Support Services. In her current role as director, she is responsible for developing and managing infrastructure to support Syracuse University’s proposal, research and faculty development efforts, including running the Office of Research training series and managing the University’s intramural grant programs.
