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.

Professor Arendt's entire professional career has been in pharmaceutical care delivery in acute care setting and pharmacy administration/management. His research interests involve leadership and personnel management.

The Executive Assistant to the Dean provides daily administrative support to the Dean in the development and implementation of policies, organizational development, project management, financial analysis, and budget compliance.  Other responsibilities include supporting the Dean in public relations and community outreach.

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. 

Interest area is providing outpatient psychiatric pharmacy services to underserved populations. Currently practices as a psychiatric pharmacist at Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center in Hillsboro, Oregon. Dr. Bradley enjoys precepting both pharmacy students and residents completing mental health rotations at Virginia Garcia.

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 research focus is on identifying and understanding sex differences in brain and behaviors caused by alcohol. We also study interactions between stress and responses to alcohol in several animal models.

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.

Dr. Faro specializes in Pediatrics, Hematology/Oncology, Palliative Care, Parenteral Nutrition Support, Acute Care Pharmacy, Clinical Pharmacogenetics, continuing professional development (CPD) and interprofessional education.

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.

Manages school sponsored events and work study programs, budgets, & communications. Provides widely varying administrative support to all students, faculty and administration including office operations, admissions, student support and the Assistant Deans.

Dr. Hoang's focus is community pharmacy practice, and he is currently a float pharmacist for CVS/Target. He currently serves on the HealthNet P&T Committee, and is a former CVS/Target Pharmacy Manager in the heart of downtown Portland. He has served as part of the Clark College Pharmacy Technician Advisory Committee.  He has worked on various healthcare projects for Horizon Continuing Medical Education (CME) Pharmacy.

I assist students in making sure all their paperwork is ready to submit to sites for their experiential education. I make sure that all student hours have been recorded correctly so students can receive full credit for their time. I help Coordinator for Experiential Education Melanie Belles with scheduling rotations as needed.

The Coordinator for Program Operations supports the Office of Academics and Assessment, Office of Student Affairs, and Office of Experiential Education in a variety of student success and development initiatives, program assessment, and operations. This role includes responsibility for student organizations, career readiness, and records retention.

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.

In her role as a PGY-2 resident, Dr. Merlo divides her time between teaching at Pacific University and caring for patients at Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center. Her clinical interests include chronic disease state management including diabetes, COPD, and cardiovascular risk reduction.

Dan Neal, PharmD, BCPS is an Affiliate Professor of Pharmacy Practice.

My practice area is ambulatory care pharmacy in a primary care clinic within a federally qualified health center. I see patients for management of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, asthma and COPD as part of an interprofessional patient centered medical home. I also work closely with our post-graduate learners in helping to prepare them to be independent clinical practitioners. My research area of interest is related to student and post-grad learning. My current research is focused on student learning particularly in skills based courses. 

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.

My clinical practice setting is at Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, a primary care clinic in Cornelius, OR. I have prescriptive authority through collaborative practice agreements to see patients and manage their medication therapy for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, asthma, tobacco cessation, and latent tuberculosis infection. Additionally, I coordinate pharmacy involvement in seasonal and migrant farmworker mobile outreach events in the summer. I often have students and residents/fellows on rotation or working with me in clinic. My research is focused on clinical practice management and residency training.

The Admissions & Experiential Strategist works with both the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Experiential Education. Primary responsibilities include overseeing the onboarding of new students to the program, overseeing student compliance with immunization, screening and certification requirements, expanding and coordinating outreach to local high schools, and collection and analysis of data related to student internships.

Dr. Stanislaw is recent alumna of Pacific University is excited to be part of the pharmacy practice faculty. She will also be working with Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Clinic as an ambulatory care clinical pharmacist. She is passionate about improving health literacy, drug information, and teaching.

My research interests involve the use of natural products in complementary and alternative medicine, focusing on botanical entities popular in traditional medicine (e.g. Turmeric Root, Senna Leaf, Goji Berries, Boswellia Bark, Black Pepper Fruit). Despite tightening federal regulations on the dietary supplement industry, consumers continue to self-medicate with natural products that generally have not demonstrated clinically significant results ($6.9 billion in US retail sales in 2015, American Botanical Council). Coupled with the current trends in consumer self-medication, there is an urgent need to understand the safety and efficacy of popular natural products.

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. Wortman is passionate about pharmacists' role in the community and primary care. She is especially interested in diabetes management and education in medically-underserved populations.