Following her fellowships, Burrows became an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and served as a scientist in the Hospital for Sick Children's Research Institute.[1] She also served as Director of the Centre for Infection and Biomaterials Research at Toronto General Hospital.[2] As a new faculty member, Burrows received the Connaught New Staff Matching Award and received the Dean's Fund Competition for New Staff Award.[3] While at Sick Children's, Burrows oversaw research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa and how the bacteria attach themselves to surfaces.[4] In 2002, she was named the winner of the McMurrich Award and received a two-year grant from the Kidney Foundation of Canada for her project, "Development of anti-microbial coatings for peritoneal catheters suitable for simultaneous exchange procedures."[5] She then received the 2003 George Armstrong-Peters Prize as a "young investigator who has shown outstanding productivity during his/her initial period as an independent investigator as evidenced by research publications in peer reviewed journals, grants held, and students trained."[6][7] In 2004, Burrows received the Elsie Winifred Crann Memorial Trust Award in Medical Research and was invited to be a member of the Grants Review panels of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health.[8]
Burrows left the University of Toronto in 2006 to join McMaster University as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences.[1] Upon joining the faculty, she focused her research on studying biofilms and Type IV pili (T4P) to understand how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.[9] Her laboratory also began investigating the effectiveness of glycosylated Type IV pili as components as vaccines and how they compare to other types of vaccines for tuberculosis.[10] Starting in 2012, she served as a grant application reviewer and panel chair at McMaster's Canadian Institutes of Health Research University Delegate.[11] In March 2017, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.[9] The following month, she was recognized with a McMaster University Faculty Association Award for Outstanding Service.[11]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Burrows published op-eds describing the danger of the coronavirus [12] and encouraged Canadians to get vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.[13] In June 2020, she was honoured with the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for Career Achievement, the Society's highest award for researchers.[14] The following year, she was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences for her "outstanding research accomplishments, international leadership in the microbiology community and dedicated mentorship."[15] Burrows was also appointed a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Microbe-Surface Interactions to fund her research on the superbug Pseudomonas aeruginosa and how it forms antibiotic-resistant biofilms.[16] In March 2023, Burrows was named the recipient of the Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases' John G. FitzGerald Award for her research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa.[17]
