Dr. Katrina Mealey was a graduate of Los Lunas High School and received a Presidential Scholar to attend the University of New Mexico. She graduated from the College of Pharmacy in 1986 and received the Eli Lilly Award for Scholarship, Ethics and Leadership. She then earned her DVM from Colorado State University followed by a small animal internship at the University of Minnesota. She continued her training at Texas A&M University where she completed two residencies, one in Small Animal Internal Medicine and the other in Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology. She also earned a PhD in pharmacology from Texas A&M University.
Dr. Mealey is currently a Regents Professor and Endowed Chair at Washington State University and is the Founder and Director of the Program in Individualized Medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Because of her strong foundation in pharmacy and pharmacology she pioneered the field of pharmacogenetics in veterinary medicine. She holds several patents which have been licensed by 9 different companies on four continents. Her discoveries have dramatically improved drug safety in dogs and cats. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed research articles and has authored a book (Pharmacotherapeutics for Veterinary Dispensing). She is the recipient of the WSU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award, Pfizer Award for Research Excellence, and numerous other national, regional, and university-level awards. Dr. Mealey was elected a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors in 2017, a Fellow of the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2020 and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.
2018: Joe Anderson, class of 1991
2019: Bob Shmaeff, class of 1961
2020: Mona N. Ghattas, class of 1984
2021: Michael C. Raburn, class of 1987
Keenan Ryan is a native New Mexican. He attended the University of New Mexico for both undergraduate studies as well as the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After graduating with his PharmD degree in 2014, he completed a PGY1 and PGY2-ID at the University of New Mexico Health Science Center. He remained on at The University of New Mexico Hospital where he practices as a Pharmacist Clinician managing patients on long-term antimicrobials. He is a preceptor for both the PGY1 and PGY2- ID residency programs at UNM. In 2020 he joined the UNM Hepatitis C Elimination Project and has been working to increase the number of patients screened and treated for Hepatitis C.
He believes strongly in increasing patient access to care, specifically through the advancement of pharmacists as providers. He has served as president of the New Mexico Society of Health-System Pharmacists and currently sits on the American Society of Health-System Pharmacist Council of Public Policy. In 2022 he was appointed to the New Mexico Human Services Department Primary Care Council. He has recently started a Masters of Public Health through New Mexico State University and looks forward to continuing to advocate for New Mexicans for years to come.
2018: Dr. Melissa Skelton Duke, class of 2008
2019: Dr. Jessica Conklin, class of 2011
2020: Dr. Adriane N. Irwin, class of 2010
2021: Dr. Davena M. Norris, class of 2012
Dr. Katrina Mealey was a graduate of Los Lunas High School and received a Presidential Scholar to attend the University of New Mexico. She graduated from the College of Pharmacy in 1986 and received the Eli Lilly Award for Scholarship, Ethics and Leadership. She then earned her DVM from Colorado State University followed by a small animal internship at the University of Minnesota. She continued her training at Texas A&M University where she completed two residencies, one in Small Animal Internal Medicine and the other in Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology. She also earned a PhD in pharmacology from Texas A&M University.
Dr. Mealey is currently a Regents Professor and Endowed Chair at Washington State University and is the Founder and Director of the Program in Individualized Medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Because of her strong foundation in pharmacy and pharmacology she pioneered the field of pharmacogenetics in veterinary medicine. She holds several patents which have been licensed by 9 different companies on four continents. Her discoveries have dramatically improved drug safety in dogs and cats. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed research articles and has authored a book (Pharmacotherapeutics for Veterinary Dispensing). She is the recipient of the WSU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award, Pfizer Award for Research Excellence, and numerous other national, regional, and university-level awards. Dr. Mealey was elected a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors in 2017, a Fellow of the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2020 and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.
2020: C. Frank Bennett, class of 1980
2021 Dr. Brian J. Werth, class of 2010
Nawarskas is Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the UNM College of Pharmacy (COP) and Associate Professor of Medicine at the UNM School of Medicine, Division of Cardiology. Dr. Nawarskas provides didactic and experiential teaching in several courses at the UNM College of Pharmacy focusing on cardiovascular medicine and also provides clinical pharmacy services at UNM Hospital with the Division of Cardiology. He was recently named Director of Professional Curriculum Assessment and Quality Improvement at the COP and is actively engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Feng is an expert in biochemistry and biophysics of metalloproteins and oxidoreductases. He has authored more than 96 scientific manuscripts and has been continually funded by the NIH. He is an active grant reviewer for NIH, NSF and French National Research Agency. His lab focuses on the central question of how Nature has optimized protein dynamics to promote electron transfer. This question forms his life’s work and is a source of endless fascination for him. The Feng laboratory is active in an innovative combination of cutting-edge approaches, including laser flash photolysis, pulsed EPR, ultrafast 2D IR, genetic code expansion and computational chemistry.
The goal is to understand what the function of a biological relevant metal site is, how it achieves its function, and what factors dictate its function. Feng’s recent studies of the NOS proteins demonstrate that functional domain motions and interdomain docking play a central role in NOS isoform function by modulating key electron transfer processes. Molecular mechanisms of NOS regulation are potentially key targets for development of direct, selective new pharmaceuticals for treating several diseases that currently lack effective treatments.