Lynn Dittman
Citation recipient Lynne Dittman Edler (left) with Dean Jeanette Roberts (right)
Lynne Dittman Edler is a 1980 graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy. She began her career at Columbia Hospital in Milwaukee, holding a variety of positions over her 19 years of service including Director of Pharmacy Services. After leaving Columbia, she joined the staff of Gollash Pharmacy in Brookfield, a small chain of community pharmacies. Lynne returned to hospital practice when she took a position as Director of Pharmacy for LifeCare Hospitals of Wisconsin. A unique opportunity and challenge presented itself when the company decided to build a new hospital in Pewaukee to serve the unique needs of acute long term care patients. Lynne played a key role is opening the new hospital and developing a comprehensive pharmacy operation within it. After six years with LifeCare, Lynne left to open another hospital only a few miles away and served as Director of Pharmacy Services for the Rehabilitation Hospital of Wisconsin in Waukesha, a free-standing inpatient rehabilitation hospital focusing on the care of brain injury patients and others requiring rehabilitation services. Recently, Lynne has returned to community practice by joining the team at Marshland Pharmacies, a family owned company of three community stores in Dodge County.
Lynne is a longstanding volunteer with the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin. She is presently Past President and Chairman of the Board for PSW, a role she says has been the highlight of her volunteer ‘career’. Lynne has also served in many other volunteer capacities. She served for more than 20 years as a volunteer with the American Diabetes Association, including Chairman of the Board here in Wisconsin and as a member of the national Board of Directors. Lynne was an active member of the Waukesha Service Club until 2008. She has served as an Elder at St. John’s in Germantown and as an active member and leader in the Junior League of Milwaukee. Additionally, Lynne has served as a clinical instructor for the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy and the Columbia Carroll College of Nursing.
Lynne was elected to the North Prairie Village Board in April 2002, serving consecutive two year terms and chairing the Finance and Public Relations committees.
Over the course of her career, Lynne has received recognition for her contributions to the profession and her community.
Dennis Feller
Citation recipient Dr. Dennis Feller (left) with Dean Jeanette Roberts (right)
A native of Monticello, Wisconsin, Dr. Feller came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and received his B.S. (1963) in pharmacy, and MS (1966) and PhD.(1968) degrees in pharmacology under the mentorship of Professor Kenneth F. Finger at our School of Pharmacy. After a two year National Institutes of Health Fellowship, he joined the Division of Pharmacology faculty in the College of Pharmacy at The Ohio State University for 26 years, rising through the ranks in the Division of Pharmacology, becoming the Chairperson in 1997. In 1995, Dr. Feller joined the School of Pharmacy at the University of Mississippi-Oxford campus as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Pharmacology for 8 years, before retiring in 2003.
Dr. Feller taught pharmacology to undergraduate pharmacy students and graduate students at both Universities. He was mentor to 22 PhD and 8 MS graduate students, and 14 postdoctoral fellows. Dennis took professional leaves at the National Institutes of Health and at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Kentucky studying the cellular and molecular actions of drugs. Throughout his career, he also served in visiting professor positions abroad, including the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Caracas, Venezuela), Zagazig University (Zagazig, Egypt), University of Bari (Bari, Italy) and Mahidol University (Bangkok, Thailand) where he presented seminars and graduate courses in drug metabolism and on drugs affecting lipid metabolism and platelet function. Dennis set up agreements for the recruitment and training of international graduate students.
Over the 34 years in academia, Dennis authored or co-authored more than 170 scientific publications, 240 research abstracts and was a co-inventor of 10 US patents arising from interdisciplinary research activities.
Much of his research work was interdisciplinary involving collaborations with colleagues in biochemistry, natural products and medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics and pharmacognosy, and he received extramural funds in excess of $5 million, mostly from the National Institutes of Health, for support of his research activities and training collaborations.
Dr. Feller honors include membership in Rho Chi Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi and Society of Sigma Xi. He has held professional memberships in the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), American Heart Association, and International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. In addition, he has served as the president of the Ohio State Sigma Xi Chapter; as president of the South Eastern Pharmacology Society, a regional ASPET society; and as a primary grant reviewer and study section head of the Central Ohio Chapter of the American Heart Association.
Curt Johnson
Citation recipient Professor Curt Johnson (left) with Dean Jeanette Roberts (right)
Curt Johnson joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy faculty in 1978. He was one of the first faculty members in the clinical pharmacy group at the school. He arrived with a special interest in nephrology pharmacy and soon became a member of the nephrology section of the UW Department of Medicine, an appointment he held until his retirement in 2003. In the span of his career, Prof. Johnson became recognized nationally as one of a small number of pharmacy faculty members with expertise in nephrology pharmacy. The majority of his publications reflect his work in patients with kidney disease.
While a faculty member here at UW, Prof. Johnson was an active participant in campus activities outside of the school. He helped launch the current academic staff governance system, served on the important campus planning committee, was a member of a campus self-study committee for university accreditation and served on search committees to hire campus administrators.
Within the school, Curt rose to the rank of full professor, served a term as associate dean for student and professional affairs, served two terms as chair of the pharmacy practice division, and assumed a wide variety of other administrative duties. He has also been a very active participant in the work of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, the professional organization representing all of pharmacy practice throughout the state, currently serving as the editor of the journal.
Since his retirement, Prof. Johnson has served as the associate director of the School of Pharmacy Global Health program, a position from which he just recently stepped down. In that capacity, he also served as a senior advisor to the UW Center for Global Health. His international interests have created opportunities for UW pharmacy students to study in Thailand, Ecuador and Oman. Prof. Johnson has also participated in many medical mission trips to Central and South America and Asia.
During his 32 years at the UW, Curt has embraced the university’s mission of teaching, service and research and has lived out the Wisconsin Idea of extending the influence of the university beyond the boundaries of the campus.
C. R. Hutchinson
Citation recipient Dr. C. R. Hutchinson
A native of Ohio, Dr. C. R. Hutchinson graduated from the Ohio State University with a BS in Pharmacy and earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut as an assistant professor of pharmacognosy, teaching chemistry and medicinal chemistry. In 1974, Dr. Hutchinson joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy and remained on the faculty here until his retirement.
Dr. Hutchinson was a pioneer of the genetic manipulation of microorganisms for the production of natural product based drugs. His landmark achievements set the stage for the microbial production of many frontline drugs – including the adriamycins, macrolide antibiotics and the statins. The genetic tools and plasmids developed by Hutch and his coworkers remain in use worldwide today. Dr. Hutchinson published over 250 works, including research articles, patents, and reviews. His professional accomplishments have been recognized by several prestigious national and international scientific awards.
Dr. Hutchinson’s research program also served as a fertile training ground for a large number of undergraduate and PhD students, postdoctoral scholars and visiting scientists and his expertise on the cutting edge of drug discovery clearly translated to his extensive teaching in the pharmacy professional program.
Following retirement from the UW in 2000, Dr. Hutchinson spent six years at Kosan Biosciences as VP of New Technologies. He guided a selection of new projects which culminated in four anticancer drugs entering clinical trials. In 2006, he became a consultant for Kosan to allow time to administer a multi-million dollar grant for new cancer drug development at the University of Wisconsin.
Ironically, Dr. Hutchinson lost his battle with an aggressive cancer in January 2010 – after developing technologies and therapies to fight it during his very distinguished career. His legacy lives on at the UW School of Pharmacy with an annual lecture delivered each fall in his memory.