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UW–Madison pharmacy dean finalists announced

February 20, 2014 By Chris Barncard

The four finalists for the deanship of the School of Pharmacy will visit campus for public presentations starting Monday, Feb. 24.

A 15-member committee made up of faculty, staff and students and chaired by Paul Marker, associate professor of pharmacy, screened a pool of applicants and recommended the four candidates to Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Provost Paul M. DeLuca Jr.

The finalists are:

Christopher A. Bradfield, professor of oncology and director of graduate programs, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

A professor at UW–Madison’s McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research since 1996, Bradfield directs the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center. He studies the way mammalian systems adapt to environmental change. His laboratory has identified the cellular receptor for the pollutant dioxin and helped defined the molecular clock that governs circadian behavior and physiology. Bradfield serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and is a member of the Society of Toxicology and the American Chemical Society.

Bradfield holds a doctorate in nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rodney J.Y. Ho, professor of pharmaceutics and adjunct professor of bioengineering, University of Washington.

In 1990, Ho joined the faculty at the University of Washington, where his research links drug levels in tissues within the body to disease symptoms. He develops devices and nano-medicine technologies for drug delivery, focusing on ways to improve the safety and efficacy of pain medications and anti-infection agents for HIV and cancer. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Management, his innovations have led to pair of spinoff companies.

Ho earned a doctorate in biochemistry, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

David S. Lawrence, Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor, The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lawrence’s research program in chemical biology has produced an array of light-activated inhibitors, fluorescent sensors, enzymes, and drugs, which are designed to manipulate and probe the biochemical pathways that control various forms of aberrant cell behavior. Disease states under investigation include cancer, disorders of metabolism, and inflammatory diseases. Lawrence joined the faculty at the UNC at Chapel Hill in 2007 after more than a decade at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University.

Lawrence’s doctorate in chemistry is from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Steven M. Swanson, professor of pharmacognosy, visiting vice dean for the College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Swanson, a professor at UIC since 1998, has served as acting dean for the university’s College of Pharmacy, and is now the college’s associate dean for research and graduate education. He began his faculty career studying the cellular mechanisms by which dietary substances modulate carcinogenesis, and now focuses on the discovery of anticancer drugs from natural sources and understanding the role of hormones — particularly growth hormone — in cancer. Swanson is an advisory board member for the journal Endocrinology and associate editor of the Journal of Natural Products.

Swanson holds a doctorate in pharmacognosy from UIC.

The candidates will visit campus over the next three weeks to meet with faculty, staff, students, administrators and other groups. Their visits will include presentations open to the entire campus community on the following dates:

• Swanson, 1:45 p.m. Feb. 24 in Room 2002, Rennebohm Hall

• Bradfield, 1:45 p.m. Feb. 27 in Room 2006, Rennebohm Hall

• Lawrence, 1:45 p.m. March 6 in Room 2006, Rennebohm Hall

• Ho, 1:45 p.m. March 10 in Room 2002, Rennebohm Hall

The candidates’ presentations will be recorded and posted to the university’s search site — http://provost.wisc.edu/pharmacy-dean-search.htm — where members of the university community can submit feedback on the finalists.

The successful candidate will succeed Dean Jeanette Roberts, who plans to retire after 11 years at the helm of the UW System’s only pharmacy school.