Faculty & Staff | School of Pharmacy

Dean Karimi's interest areas include assessment and educational research and outcomes; pharmacy practice, proteases biochemistry, and the role of antibiotics on bacterial protein synthetic machinery.

The Dean is the chief administrative and academic officer of the School of Pharmacy and provides leadership to support conducive teaching, learning, and research endeavors at the School and assists faculty, staff, and students in achieving their professional and academic goals.

Area of practice is within care of underserved and minority populations within a primary care setting. Focus is on chronic disease state management with a primary emphasis on diabetes. Areas of research revolve around quality of care and outcome improvement for these patient populations. 

Dana Bojorquez's areas of interest include anticoagulation reversal, toxicokinetics rattlesnake envenomation, and hazmat disaster preparedness.

My basic science specialty is in the study of action of the drugs in neuropsychiatric disorders and chronic pain. My current scholarship focus is in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), which focuses on identifying the best teaching methods to help students learn and succeed.

The long term goal of our research is to understand how Leishmania, a pathogenic protozoan parasite, adapts to changes its host environment to acquire essential nutrients for its growth and viability, and survive environmental stress. Our current research is focused on characterizing the parasite machinery used to capture purines (essential nutrients) from the host environment and in identifying pathways and cell components critical for the survival of the parasite when nutrients are limiting.

My professional interest areas include preceptor development, emotional intelligence, resilience, motivation, and obesity. I practiced at Albertsons Pharmacy until 2015 as a Pharmacy Manager, Market Recruiter and Summer Intern Coordinator.

My research interests revolve around two main projects related to drug metabolism:

• Studying the Effect of Herbal Remedies on Drug Metabolizing Enzymes
• Studying the Effect of Herbal Remedies on Arachidonic Acid Metabolism as a Target for Hypertension Treatment

Our research in the last 5 years has discovered several small and natural molecules (e.g. sulforaphane from broccoli) that inhibit the endogenous metabolism of arachidonic acid and reduces blood pressure in hypertension animal models. Additionally, we investigated the potential effect of these molecules on drug metabolizing enzymes to predict possible herb-drug interactions.

My research interest is in the discovery and development of novel inhibitors of targets related to pain and addiction. Particularly I have focused on studying small venom-derived peptides, known as conotoxins, which have a level of selectivity for a variety of ion channels. Many of these ion channels appear to play a role in pain pathways, making them attractive targets for the relief of severe or intractable pain. My goal is to harness the properties of these peptides to one day produce analgesics for severe forms of pain that are non-addictive.

Dr. Fortner's practice and research interests include pharmaceutical compounding, patient-centered care in the community setting, and pharmacist provided clinical services. He maintains a practice site at an independent community pharmacy which also specializes in non-sterile compounding and long-term care medication preparation.​

Dr. Gibbard has practiced pharmacy primarily in the hospital setting with some moonlighting in the retail setting. His teaching responsibilities relate primarily to acute cardiovascular disease and the intersection of social sciences and humanities to patient-centered care. His research interests are typically related to the "soft skills" of pharmacy, including empathy, cultural sensitivity, and health literacy.

My overall focus is to contribute to scientific discovery and the effective use of medicines through collaborative science, teaching, mentoring, and active membership in the research community. We strive to discover mechanistic details that contribute to variability in drug response to identify new therapeutic targets for drug discovery, and to utilize current medications more effectively. Major areas of active research include drug metabolism, nicotine addiction, drug-drug/drug-herb interactions, bioanalytical methods (LC-MS/MS), inhibitor design, mechanistic enzymology, pharmacogenomics, in vitro-in vivo extrapolation, structure-toxicity relationships, and the modulation of letrozole metabolism (letrozole is a breast cancer drug).

I work directly with Dean Karimi and provide support to the School of Pharmacy Faculty. I wear many hats in my position, from helping manage the School of Pharmacy budgets, to aiding in the coordination of special events. You'll often see me assisting with our annual Award Ceremony held during the Spring

The Director of Student Success & Professional Development works with the Office of Student Affairs, Office of Experiential Education, and Office of Academics and Assessment to oversee career development, student leadership, social and behavioral learning outcomes assessment, and other aspects of student life and success.

My primary research focus is connected through my interests in post-graduate training, experiential education, and preceptor development. I additionally have some projects focused in teaching methods and pharmacy school program assessment. Current projects include: a survey of grading systems in US Schools of Pharmacy including a focus on Pass/Fail/competency based programs; trends and factors impacting pharmacy residency match rates; quality assessment methods of experiential education sites; and development of critical appraisal of the medical literature training modules for residents and preceptors.

Dr. Merlo's clinical interests include chronic disease state management including diabetes, COPD, and cardiovascular risk reduction.

My practice focus is in chronic disease management, particularly diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular risk reduction, within the outpatient clinical setting. I also work with our post-graduate learners in our pharmacy practice courses and at the primary care clinic.

Melanie Petilla is the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, working to address a range of student development needs.

The neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis affects ~12 million people annually, with resulting illnesses ranging from cutaneous ulcerative lesions to fatal visceralizing infections. A better understanding of parasite biology and host-parasite interactions is critical for the development of much needed new therapeutic strategies and the overall goal of our research is to validate the polyamine pathway as a medical target. Polyamines are metabolites that play central roles in rapidly proliferating cells, and recent studies have highlighted their critical nature in Leishmania parasites. We are using a variety of techniques, including molecular biology, biochemistry, and tissue culture to elucidate the functions of polyamines for parasite proliferation and survival.

The Coordinator for Faculty Affairs assists Faculty and staff and reports to the Associate Dean for Pharmacy Practice. The Coordinator provides Administrative support by providing efficiency in various areas and collaborates with the Office of Global Pharmacy Education and Research (OGPER) as well as the Office of Experiential Education.

Brendan Stamper's research is focused on projects that utilize comparative genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic approaches to identify pathways critical to propagating or preventing liver injury. 

I support the Office of Student Affairs, the Office of Experiential Education, the Office of Academic and Assessment, and faculty and staff across both Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences cohorts. I develop and maintain projects related to student support in curricular, co-curricular, and experiential environments as well as faculty and administrative support. I connect with other staff and faculty members of the School of Pharmacy by serving as a voting staff member to a School of Pharmacy’s standing committee and assigned to other clerical duties by the assistant deans.

Dr. Tallman's clinical practice focuses on infectious diseases pharmacotherapy, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and antimicrobial stewardship, with the goal of achieving optimal antimicrobial therapy for all patients.

Dr. Turner's main interest is antimicrobial stewardship: the appropriate use of antibiotics to ensure adequate treatment while limiting antibiotic resistance and side effects. Hospital and clinic based stewardship are areas that require more research and greater efforts. Dr. Turner practices at Tuality Healthcare and the Virginia Garcia clinic.

Dr. Wilson’s clinical experience and research interests lie in pediatric/neonatal acute care, critical care, and infectious disease.