Spring 2016 Newsletter

David P. Zgarrick, PhD, RPh, FAPhA

Dean’s Greeting

Greetings from the School of Pharmacy! I don’t know if it’s the frenetic pace of events at Northeastern, or just the fact that I’m getting older, but it seems that each year goes by faster than before! The past six months have been an especially busy time for the School. As the pace of our lives have picked up, so has the pace of our accomplishments. I’m happy to share with you some of the highlights of the recent achievements of our faculty, staff and students in the links below.

A major milestone for any school of pharmacy is achieving and maintaining their accreditation status with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). Since our last newsletter we’ve learned that we’ve maintained the full accreditation status of both our Doctor of Pharmacy program and our Continuing Pharmacy Education program, with both being extended for their maximum timelines. These accreditations were the culmination of countless hours of work by our entire community. In particularly I’d like to thank Dr. Margarita DiVall, Clinical Professor and Director of Assessment, for her leadership of our PharmD self-study process, and Dr. Anita Young, Director of the Office of Continuing Education, for her efforts to see that our CE programs remained accredited.

By the time you read this we’ll have ended the spring term and celebrated graduation. And as we know at Northeastern, the Monday after graduation starts our Summer semester, with new groups of students starting their first co-ops, faculty and students continuing their classes and research, and our P4 students embarking on their APPEs. This is a busy place, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

We’d love to hear from you and keep you connected to the School of Pharmacy. That can be as simple as liking our Facebook page or sending us an email at [email protected].

Best wishes for a great summer!

David P Zgarrick, PhD, FAPhA
Acting Dean and Professor

DEAN’S CHALLENGE:  “Like” us on our School of Pharmacy Facebook page!  We’ll send a special Northeastern gift to the 500th and 1000th subscribers.

Spring Celebrations!
Spring Celebrations!
The Scholarship and Awards Banquet, Senior Convocation, and commencement exercises were the culmination of an academic year filled with successes, accomplishments and reasons to celebrate.  The Scholarship and Awards Convocation was held on March 15th.  Through donor and sponsor support we were able to gather students and their guests, faculty and staff, and our generous donors ...more
School of Pharmacy Team Receive 2016 Award for Excellence in Assessment
School of Pharmacy Team Receive 2016 Award for Excellence in Assessment
A team from Northeastern University, including Dr. Jennifer Kirwin, Dr. Danielle Miller and Dr. Margarita DiVall, will receive one of the 2016 awards for Excellence in Assessment. The national award is given annually by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, a professional association representing academic pharmacy. The award is in recognition of our work ...more
Kayla Joyal (PharmD '18) Receives APhA Foundation Award
Kayla Joyal (PharmD '18) Receives APhA Foundation Award
Kayla Joyal (PharmD ’18) was awarded the Sam Kalman Scholarship from the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation. This award recognizes Kayla’s academic achievement as well as her active leadership in the Northeastern University chapter of the APhA Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) where she serves as president-elect. Kayla was recognized at the APhA Foundation Contributors’ ...more
Pharmacy Recognition at Northeastern University's Innovation and Scholarship Expo
Pharmacy Recognition at Northeastern University's Innovation and Scholarship Expo
At the 2016 Northeastern University Research, Innovation and Scholarship Expo (RISE), Doctor of Pharmacy students Kevin DeLeonardo and Alyssa Long received first place honors for their project which was an assessment of pharmacy student didactic and clinical preparedness surrounding LGBT and mental illness patient populations.  Overall, their findings indicated that classmates were very knowledgeable about ...more
Northeastern Pharmacy Student Wins National Patient Counseling Competition
Northeastern Pharmacy Student Wins National Patient Counseling Competition
Alexandra Kolwicz (PharmD ‘17) achieved first place honors at the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) National Patient Counseling Competition (NPCC). This annual competition draws from thousands of students at the local level who compete to represent their school and chapter at the APhA-ASP national meeting which was held this year in Baltimore, Maryland. ...more
School of Pharmacy Students Recognized for Three Major Campus-Level Awards for 2016
Each spring, Northeastern University recognizes top students across the university in the form of three campus-level awards. We congratulate all of the pharmacy students who were recognized this academic year!   The Sears B Condit Awards for Outstanding Undergraduate Achievement is awarded annually to the 100 graduating seniors with the highest GPA. The following pharmacy students, receiving ...more
School of Pharmacy Alumnus Christopher Lynch Named Director, Office of Nutritional Research
School of Pharmacy Alumnus Christopher Lynch Named Director, Office of Nutritional Research
Northeastern School of Pharmacy alumnus Christopher Lynch has been named the new director of the Office of Nutrition Research (ONR) and chief of the Nutrition Research Branch within the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lynch received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern ...more
Jeanne Madden Lead Author in Study of Electronic Health Records
Jeanne Madden Lead Author in Study of Electronic Health Records
In the first known study to examine the completeness of clinical data in a large electronic health record (EHR), researchers from Harvard Medical School’s Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute found substantial missing data, with profound implications for clinical care, medical research, and public health. The study is published on-line ...more
Torchilin Study Addresses Unmet Needs in Cancer Therapy
Torchilin Study Addresses Unmet Needs in Cancer Therapy
Vladimir Torchilin, PhD was awarded a $1.5 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, which will fund a five-year study focused on introducing a novel class of simple-to-prepare therapeutic preparations, that when combined with traditional chemotherapy, could provide a promising strategy against multidrug resistant (MDR) tumors. His work on the project is entitled ...more
Saczynski Award to Examine Geriatric Elements of Atrial Fibrillation
Saczynski Award to Examine Geriatric Elements of Atrial Fibrillation
Northeastern University School of Pharmacy faculty member Jane Saczynski, PhD, and co- principal investigator David McManus, MD, of the University Of Massachusetts Medical Center, were recently awarded an R01 grant for their project entitled “Systematic Assessment of Geriatric Elements in Atrial Fibrillation” (SAGE-AF). The four-year, $4 million study is jointly funded by the National Heart, ...more