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. 

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.

Dr. Bzowyckyj's research and clinical interest areas include diabetes, cardiovascular risk reduction, motivational interviewing, integrating clinical pharmacists within primary care practices, leadership development, the economics of healthcare, and working with underserved patient populations.

I currently practice in ambulatory care at Mountain View Medical Center in Forest Grove, OR. My particular area of interests are in motivational patient-care joint decision making, care of older adults, and interprofessional healthcare.

My professional interests include nephrology, immunology, and kidney transplantation. I maintained a collaborative practice at Legacy Good Samaritan Transplant Service in Portland until 2015, at which time I began serving as Assistant Dean for Pharmacy Practice. Research, which had included optimizing drug dosing of immunosuppressants and the medication adherence of transplant patients, has now transitioned to legal and regulatory affairs issues affecting pharmacy.

Leishmaniasis is one of the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and affecting more than 12 million people worldwide. Identifying and characterizing Leishmania genes and the proteins, using gene-targeted disruption strategies (such as CRISPR/Cas9) allow the selection of parasites lacking genes essential for long-term survival and/or virulence. In this way, the approaches for finding new drug targets and prevention aims could be achieved.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Research interests focus on utilizing natural products as complementary or alternative therapeutic strategies for diseases like cancer, obesity and inflammation. The utility of many natural products is limited due to their solubility and low residence time in the body. Our lab helps design, characterize and assess natural product delivery systems to address these issues. The delivery systems will be assessed through UV-Vis, fluorescence, HPLC and other analytical techniques. Successful products will be assessed in relevant cell culture and animal models

Dr. Saito's research and clinical interest areas include diabetes, cardiovascular risk reduction, asthma/COPD/tobacco cessation, integrating clinical pharmacists within primary care practices, advancement of comprehensive primary care, pharmacy residency training, and working with underserved patient populations.  He maintains a clinical practice at a local federally-qualified health center where he works as part of an integrated, interprofessional care team and has prescriptive authority to manage chronic diseases through collaborative practice agreements.  In addition, he coordinates pharmacist involvement in seasonal and migrant farmworker outreach events in the summer.

I am currently a PGY2 ambulatory care resident with the School of Pharmacy with my main practice site with Virginia Garcia. My main areas of interest and focus include academia, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular risk reduction, asthma, and COPD.

Dr. Steele is the outpatient pharmacy manager and a clinical pharmacist for Virginia Garcia's primary care clinic in Newberg, Oregon. Virginia Garcia is a Federally Qualified Health Center where she provides ambulatory care clinical services including management of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, asthma, COPD and tobacco cessation. She is also the PGY-1 Community Pharmacy Residency Director and a clinical preceptor for the PGY-2 Ambulatory Care/Academia Pharmacy Residency program.

Dr. Suzuki’s practice and research interest areas include global pharmacy education, hepatology/gastroenterology, and pharmacokinetics/pharmacogenomics from a perspective of an ambulatory care pharmacist.

Interest areas include hepatology, gastrointestinal disorders, metabolic disorders, pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, and active learning techniques.

The Research Assistant supports the daily operations of the pharmaceutical science laboratory by training students and other researchers, performing research techniques, and general laboratory maintenance.

Jon received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the Portland State University in 2010. Since then, he has worked at different research labs and gained a series of valuable skills in biochemistry, microscopy, immunology, tissue/cell culture, and laboratory animal models.

Dr. White serves as the Student Program Coordinator and Coordinator of Ambulatory Pharmacy Services for Asante. In these roles, she oversees all pharmacy student rotations for the health system and works with pharmacists in primary care clinics who function as providers and conduct patient visits for complex medication management. Her main clinical interest is cardiology, and she teaches classes for outpatients in the cardiopulmonary rehab program.

The Research Laboratory Coordinator manages administrative operations of the pharmaceutical science laboratory and provides support for the compounding lab. The Coordinator provides oversight for basic policies and procedures essential for regular lab activities and assures adherence to safety rules and regulations. Other responsibilities include service to the School of Pharmacy (SOP), College of Health Professions, and University, and participation in academic governance as appropriate per appointment.