UNM COLLEGE OF PHARMACY CONVOCATION IS SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008 AT POPEJOY HALL - Graduates, please be at Popejoy at 9:30am sharp.  Faculty, please be at Popejoy at 10:15am sharp.  Ceremony begins promptly at 11:00am with a reception to follow at the UNM SUB.

Staff member Penny Hogan receives prestigious writing award

Penny Hogan was recently selected by the English Department within the UNM College of Arts and Sciences to receive a Professional Writing Achievement Award for the 2007-2008 Academic Year.  The honor includes a cash award as well as automatic nominations for any Professional Writing scholarships and awards for which she will qualify during the 2008-2009 academic year.  Congratulations Penny!

News from the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) Annual Meeting.

Student pharmacist Adriane Irwin, has been elected National President Elect of APhA-ASP. This is the first time in New Mexico’s history that a pharmacy student has ever been elected to this high of an office within APhA-ASP!  more

Student pharmacist Kimberly Neff received the APhA-ASP National Student Leadership Award. Kim was one of only 4 recipients of this honor from across the nation. Kim was also appointed Vice Chair of the APhA-ASP Policy Committee and is a recipient of the Robert D. Gibson Student Pharmacist Scholarship. This is a national endowed scholarship awarded to only 9 students each year through APhA-ASP!

Student pharmacist Preeyaporn Sarangarm was appointed to the APhA-ASP Awards Committee, making the UNM College of Pharmacy the only school in the national to have 2 students sitting on these national boards. There are 16 slots on these boards and more than 40,000 pharmacy students in the U.S.!

As a group, UNM’s APhA-ASP chapter received the Region 8 Immunization Award for their efforts in providing free immunizations to the people of New Mexico thought their Operation Immunization Committee. The chapter also received 1 of 10 C.H.A.N.C.E. Awards for their work with Healthcare for the Homeless here in Albuquerque. Our student pharmacists provided medication counseling to homeless and underserved community members through this important project.

Honors from the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA)

Student pharmacist Summer Schroeder has been named the 2008 NCPA Summer Intern. NCPA awards just one internship annually.  more

Student Pharmacist Regina Scott was appointed to the NCPA Pharmacy Student Executive Committee at the national level!

Honors from the Society of Toxicology (SOT) Annual Meeting

Biomedical Sciences Graduate Student Leah Mitchell received two national honors at the recent SOT annual meeting. Leah won the Drug Discovery and Development student poster competition was voted student representative to the Inhalation and Respiratory Toxicology Specialty Section Board of Directors. Leah’s graduate research is housed within the laboratory of Dr. Scott Burchiel, Professor and Associate Dean for Research.

Pharmacy Resident Receives Honor

Dr. Bernadette Johnson, College of Pharmacy Class of 2007, and 2nd year resident in Dr. Renee Claude Mercier’s Specialized Residency in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Program just received word that she has been named a recipient of the 2008 Wal-Mart Annual Conference Scholarship through the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). This scholarship provides funding for Dr. Johnson to travel with COP Dean and HSC VP for Research, John A. Pieper, PharmD to the AACP Annual Meeting and Teachers Seminar in Chicago Illinois this summer. The goal of this scholarship program is to strengthen the recipient’s skills and commitment to a career in academic pharmacy through participation in programming and activities at the AACP meeting.

Faculty Honors

Dr. Craig Marcus, Professor, Vice Dean, and Chair of the Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences was named Teacher of the Year by first-year student pharmacists.

Dr. James Nawarskas, Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmacy Practice was named Teacher of the Year by second-year student pharmacists.

Dr. Manjunath “Amit” Pai, Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmacy Practice was named Teacher of the Year by third-year student pharmacists.

Dr. Mary K. Walker was elected Chair of this year’s Gordon Research Conference, Mechanisms of Toxicity section. The Gordon Research Conference is a longstanding and highly respected conference series within the scientific community and the College of Pharmacy is honored to have a scholar of Dr. Walker’s caliber as part of its faculty. For more information on the conference, which takes place at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, July 27-August 1, 2008, please see the following
url: http://www.grc.org and click on “conferences” - “current meetings” - “Mechanisms of Toxicity”. Registration is limited so please apply early.