Commencement ceremonies always inspire me because I’m reminded of the sheer talent of our pharmacy graduates and the lives we’ve had the privilege of shaping through education. The future of pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences is in good hands with the Class of 2018, and we at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy are proud to be a foundation of their success.

Our impressive alumni continue to be recognized as among the best. For example, three of our School of Pharmacy alumni have been inducted as 2018 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) fellows. Making an impact at the Mayo Clinic, Froedert Hospital, and UW Hospital and Clinics, our alumni are transforming pharmacy practice.

The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) named two alumni and three School of Pharmacy faculty members as AACP Walmart Scholars.

In a new alumni honor, the School has awarded the 2018 Pharm-Tox Alumnus of the Year to Jack Vanden Heuvel, an entrepreneur and scholar who is advancing cancer research through nutrigenomics and molecular toxicology. He’s another example of how our School of Pharmacy graduates are harnessing the power of science to make a difference in people’s health.

Another alum who is transforming patient lives is Azita Saleki-Gerhardt, a scientist and industry leader who has worked on treatments for HIV and cures for hepatitis C. As a triple Badger with her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy, she is an invaluable advocate and supporter of the School and our students.

New programs bolster student outcomes

As a top 10 pharmacy school, we continue to evolve and innovate to help ensure student success. Pharmacists are well positioned to be the health care leaders the world needs, and the School is taking steps to develop that talent. In an exciting new initiative launching this fall, the School is partnering with the Wisconsin School of Business at UW–Madison to offer PharmD students the opportunity to gain formal business training that will prepare pharmacy students as entrepreneurs and industry leaders.

The Pharmacy Operations and Technology Management (OTM) concentration, a formal sub-major within the PharmD program, combines clinical pharmacy practice with advanced business curriculum in operations and technology management in PharmD students’ second and third years. This new concentration will position student pharmacists for post-graduate residencies and fellowships, and make them career ready for diverse roles in the pharmaceutical industry and within large health care corporations in health care informatics, health systems technology, and pharmacy management operations.

With a history of many successful entrepreneurs—including Jeff and Patti Langer of the Pet Apothecary in Milwaukee who have carved out a unique pharmacy business treating more than 120 species of animals with clients that include zoos, humane societies, emergency clinics, and veterinarians—the School has kicked off more efforts to further develop entrepreneurial skills among our PharmD students. The School is providing additional entrepreneurship opportunities through its first business pitch competition. With support from faculty and spearheaded by alum George Zorich, the first SHARx Tank competition gave PharmD students the chance to develop their business ideas and make their pitch to industry veterans for feedback and ideas, plus a shot at winning $5,000 in scholarships, funded by Zorich.

As we work to build leadership skills in our PharmD students, the School’s non-credit Leadership Certificate and Mentor program brings together alumni pharmacy leaders with our student pharmacists, along with a multi-pronged approach, to foster essential leadership development. About to enter its second year, the program has 74 students participating, and the UW–Madison Center for Leadership and Involvement recently recognized the School with a special award for our innovative leadership program.    

Another curricular innovation at the School is new interprofessional education programming, which launched with an interprofessional learning activity with the School of Nursing and School of Medicine and Public Health. The first activity takes a fresh approach to teaching teamwork with expert speakers, interactive sessions, and even a panel of UW Athletics coaches. The new interprofessional education offerings also feature PharmD students learning hands-on with other health sciences students in the UW Health Clinical Simulation that provides realistic simulations of medical scenarios and issues that health care professionals often face.

On the experiential learning front, we’re expanding the number of sites in our Community Pharmacy Residency program and bringing more focus to underserved areas such as rural Wisconsin and urban centers. The School is proud to partner with Boscobel Pharmacy with alumna Michelle Farrell, Beaver Dam Hometown Pharmacy with alumna Abbigail Linde, and Hayat Pharmacy in Milwaukee with alumna Dimmy Sokhal.

Leading the way

Our students continue to outshine many of our peers. For instance, the School of Pharmacy has the nation’s fifth highest residency match rate (PGY1) in the 2018 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Resident Matching Program. With a match rate of 88%, the School’s PharmD students placed into residency programs at a rate more than 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

Here are some other examples of excellence among our students, faculty, and staff:

• Four PharmD students placed among the top eight teams in the country in the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Annual National Student Pharmacist P&T Competition.
• The UW–Madison Cellular Molecular Biology (CMB) program selected pharmaceutical sciences postdoctoral scholar Sarah Neuman for the 2017 CMB Exceptional Thesis Award for her intellectual fearlessness that led to several interesting new discoveries in the Bashirullah Lab.
• Nam Hyo Kim, Social and Administrative Sciences PhD student, won the 2018 Postgraduate Best Paper award from the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Pharmaceutical Research & Science (APhA-APRS). This is the second year in a row that one of Assistant Professor Kevin Look’s students has received this award.
• Pharm-Tox student Soren Rozema received honorable mention for the 2018 Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering in America.
• For the seventh consecutive year, the School’s Pharm-Tox students were honored with UW–Madison Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowships.
• UW–Madison International Student Services recognized Ken Niemeyer, graduate programs coordinator, with the campus-wide ISS Staff Award for his outstanding contributions to the international student community.
• Susie Barnett, associate professor in the Pharmacy Practice Division, was appointed to the Federal Practitioner Editorial Advisory Association, which oversees the peer-reviewed clinical journal serving practitioners working in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, and Public Health Service. 
• The UW-Madison CeO Programis honoring Denise Walbrandt Pigarelli, associate professor in the Pharmacy Practice Division, with the 2018 Dr. Brenda Pfaehler Award of Excellence, which recognizes her work in equal opportunity and equity in education.
• The UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) has selected Betty Chewning, professor in the Social and Administrative Sciences Division, for a new ICTR-Community Academic Partnerships (CAP) Evidence to Implementation (E2l) Award that will fund Chewning’s research and work on falls prevention with an innovative tai chi program.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Lingjun Li, professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, a shared instrument S10 grant to bring the high-resolution, high-speed MALDI mass spectrometer that will enhance the School’s cutting-edge mass spectrometry imaging capabilities for biomedical research.
• Weiping Tang, professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, is one of 17 recipients of the UW2020 research awards from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Discovery Initiative, which will help fund the Monolith instrument at the School’s Medicinal Chemistry Center that can detect and quantify molecular interactions to support in-depth mechanistic studies of small molecule/drug target interactions, develop cancer immunotherapeutics, and other related basic and translational research.

Attracting the best

Just as we attract the best students, the School is proud to bring the best faculty talent to our top-tier research university. I’m excited to welcome three rising scholars researching antibiotic resistance, movement disorder therapies, and addiction medicine to the School, two in the Pharmacy Practice Division and one in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division. Cody Wenthur, Natalie Schmitz, and Jason Peters will be joining the School as assistant professors.

In addition, Ed Portillo and Amanda Margolis will be promoted to assistant professors in the Pharmacy Practice Division in July. They are key contributors to the strength of our PharmD program and continue to demonstrate their commitment to teaching, research, and outreach.

With the close of another academic year, I’m particularly proud of our incredible students, illustrious alumni, and immensely talented faculty and staff who continue to show the world the difference Pharmacy Badgers make every day.

On, Wisconsin!

Steven M. Swanson
Dean