Faculty & Staff | School of Pharmacy

Dr. Backus maintains a small practice with Providence ElderPlace, a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly. She spends most of her time on pharmacotherapy for older adults who live independently in or near Hillsboro, often meeting with patients in their homes to assist them with managing their pharmacotherapy regimen.

The Director of Experiential Affairs reports to the Assistant Dean for Experiential Education. Responsibilities include operations scheduling, management of the experiential database (E*Value), and the creation and release of student schedules for Advanced and Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE & IPPE).

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 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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. 

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.