The University of Iowa plans to honor two friends of the college with the 2016 Honorary Alumni Awards on Sept. 29: Melissa Murer Corrigan and Bernard Sorofman.
Honorary Alumni awardees are recognized for their personal contributions toward pharmacy achievement, leadership, and service to the profession, as well as exceptional service to the college. These individuals inspire our students and serve as role models. Nominees include individuals who have made contributions to the theory and practice of pharmacy, demonstrated major accomplishments in a professional pharmacy practice or in pharmaceutical research and development. Recipients also include those who have managed or directed an organization that has made noteworthy national or international contributions to the pharmacy profession, in addition to truly exceptional service to their community, the college, the profession, or the public.
Melissa Murer Corrigan, BSPh
Melissa Murer Corrigan joined ACT in January 2012, after many years in Washington, D.C. She serves as ACT’s Vice President, Social Impact, in the Center for Equity in Learning and is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the UI College of Pharmacy. She also serves on the college’s Executive Leadership Board.
As a national leader in pharmacy and founding Executive Director/CEO for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB), she created an organization that provided credentials to 450,000 pharmacy technicians nationwide during her leadership tenure (1995-2011). She is a graduate of Drake University College of Pharmacy and received the 2010 Weaver Medal of Honor.
She is a recognized expert on credentialing, health certification, and the pharmacy workforce. Murer Corrigan, a past president of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence received the association’s distinguished Certification Industry Leadership Award in 2008. She served as President of the Council on Credentialing in Pharmacy. She is a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Bernard Sorofman, PhD
Bernard Sorofman is a professor of Health Services Research in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science and Executive Associate Dean of the UI College of Pharmacy. He was educated in Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Pharmacy at the University of Oklahoma. He received his doctoral education in Social and Administrative Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota in 1984.
Sorofman is a past president of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science (APRS) and a former member of the Board of Trustees of the American Pharmacists Association. His research concerns the interrelationship of patient and pharmacist behavior, as well as the individual health-seeking behaviors of patients and the roles of pharmacists. He also studies the system of pharmacy in society as it relates to access and impact on care. He is the author of over 200 scholarly publications and presentations.
Honorees of this, as well as the college’s other alumni awards – Genesis Alumni Award, Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Osterhaus Medal for Lifetime Achievement – will be recognized during annual Homecoming celebrations.