The University of Iowa (UI) College of Pharmacy has the pleasure of honoring several alumni and friends Oct. 27 during the Osterhaus Lifetime Achievement Symposium, Alumni Awards, and Faculty Recognition event. The opportunity is part of the College’s Homecoming celebrations. These recipients are representative of just some of the College’s alumni and friends who have excelled in their pharmacy practice, research, and community advancement, while simultaneously being steadfast ambassadors for the pharmacy profession and the College. Congratulations to the following award recipients.
Osterhaus Medal for Lifetime Achievement Award
The Osterhaus Medal for Lifetime Achievement is presented annually to one or more individuals who have made extraordinary achievements in the pharmacy profession. This medal is a pinnacle award given by the UI College of Pharmacy to a recipient who has advanced the practice of pharmacy in profound ways or made significant strides in discovery.
2022 Recipient:
Miekeleen Hart, '79 BSPh
Miekeleen Hart of Akron, Ohio, retired in 2005 as vice president of Strategic Planning U.S. Human Health for Merck after 26 years in the pharmaceutical industry. Following retirement, Hart founded MDK Consulting, LLC to provide strategy development and implementation planning consulting services to healthcare companies considering or executing new commercial models.
A 2015 recipient of the UI College of Pharmacy Distinguished Alumni Award, she has served on the College of Pharmacy Executive Leadership Board and the UI Center for Advancement (UICA) Comprehensive Campaign Steering Committee. She currently is a member of the UICA board of directors.
Additionally, Hart is vice chair for AlphaNet, Inc.’s (a nonprofit devoted to improving the lives of individuals with Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency) board of directors and co-chair of the Campaign Steering Committee for Common Bond, Uncommon Impact – a $25 million comprehensive campaign for Alpha Chi Omega Sorority. Within her home community, Hart is an active member and past president of Bath Volunteers for Service (a women’s philanthropic organization dedicated to raising and providing funds to greater Akron area nonprofit organizations) and serves on the Bath Community Fund Development Committee.
Her passion in establishing the College of Pharmacy Hart Entrepreneurial Fund is seeded in her desire to stimulate pharmacy students to act and explore the commercial viability of their creative and innovative ideas to improve patient care, health, and wellness. Hart lives with her husband Jim and their two boxer dogs.
Distinguished Alumni Award
Honorary Alumni Award
Nancy Alvarez, PharmD
Vern Duba, BA, MA
Duba is a past chair of the Library and Information Sciences Section of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and a four-time recipient of the Grace and Harold Sewell Memorial Fund Stipend. He has received the Iowa Worklife Improving Our Workplace Award, the UI College of Pharmacy Clinical and Administrative Pharmacy Excellence in Teaching Award, and the College’s P1 Teacher of the Year twice.
Genesis Alumni Award
The College of Pharmacy honors graduates of the past 20 years who have achieved early distinction in their field. Nominees include those who have made considerable contributions to the theory and practice of pharmacy or have demonstrated major accomplishments in a professional pharmacy practice or in pharmaceutical research and development. Recipients have also contributed truly exceptional service to their community, the College, the profession, or
the public.
2022 Recipients:
Samm Anderegg, '11 PharmD, MS
Rubi Burlage, '06 PhD
Brett Faine, '07 PharmD, MS
Samm Anderegg is co-founder and chief executive officer at DocStation, a software platform that helps pharmacies and health plans operate clinical programs at scale. He plays an active role in product, strategy, marketing, and pharmacy engagement.
Prior to launching his company, Anderegg practiced pharmacy for five years, implementing specialty pharmacy services for the University of Georgia Oncology & Ambulatory Care service lines. He then spent eight years as a Pharmacy HIT Collaborative consultant, developing standardized codes for clinical pharmacy documentation, which now serve as the foundation for data sharing across practice settings and quality measurement in value-based programs.
Anderegg has published several journal articles and national presentations on topics he cares about most: health-care technology, patient outcomes, and professional resilience.
As associate vice president of Sterile Product and Device Development at Merck & Co., Inc., Rubi Burlage is responsible for leadership of Merck’s sterile small molecule, biologics, and vaccine drug product design and development. Burlage previously was Merck’s executive director, Sterile Drug Product Commercialization and also led innovation in sterile and specialty products through roles of increasing responsibility.
Burlage’s interests include understanding biopharmaceutical and mechanistic principles influencing dosage form design, studying factors germane to successful product and process scale up, and developing risk-weighted strategies for drug product commercialization. She has co-authored several publications, co-invented three patents, and currently is chair emeritus of the Drug Product Leadership Group for the International Consortium for Innovation & Quality in Pharmaceutical Development.
Brett Faine has a quartet of UI roles. He is a clinical associate professor at both the College of Pharmacy and the College of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine (EM) – where he’s also director of Research Operations, and a clinical pharmacy specialist at UI Hospitals & Clinics (UIHC). Faine completed a post-graduate Acute Care Pharmacy Residency at UIHC and subsequently started the organization’s EM Pharmacy program. Besides his clinical practice and teaching, Faine is active in EM clinical research. His interests and expertise include emergency-department infectious diseases and sepsis.
Faine co-founded the Emergency Medicine PHARMacotherapy Research NETwork, the first multicenter network of EM clinical pharmacist researchers in the United States. The network connects researchers at 15 different centers nationwide, enabling collaboration among pharmacists to evaluate pharmacotherapy practices.
Humanitarian Award
The Humanitarian Award acknowledges UI College of Pharmacy community members who go above and beyond to serve others throughout the United States and across the globe. These individuals are devoted to the welfare of humanity and provide exceptional service, leadership, or patient care to those
in need.
2022 Recipient:
Jeanine Abrons, PharmD, MS
Jeanine Abrons is clinical associate professor and director of student pharmacist international activities at the UI College of Pharmacy, where her focus areas are writing, editing, and global health for underserved patient populations. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy from Drake University and a Master of Science in Social & Administrative Pharmacy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has served as author and/or editor for UI teaching cases, UI active learning exercises, American Pharmacists Association’s (APhA) Peripheral Brain for the Pharmacist, and the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association – for which she also has held an editorial advisory board role.
Abrons’ work with global underserved care extends to multiple countries. Her primary work centers around partnerships in Dominica, collaborating with a local eco-based, social entrepreneur, the Ministry of Health, and a private pharmacy. Abrons is a UI Fulbright Program advisor, helping students of multiple disciplines engage in global work. As state of Iowa co-director of Mobile Clinics, she also is actively involved in health promotion/health prevention, addressing health disparities, and vaccine access. Abrons is passionate about individualization while coordinating engagement and leadership, global health, and travel medicine courses.
Abrons has earned numerous awards and honors, including the 2016 UI Academic Teaching Advisory Council’s Innovations in Teaching with Technology Award, UI College of Pharmacy’s 2018 Teacher of the Year Award, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Global Health Pharmacist of the Year, and the APhA Pinnacle Award, recognizing her contributions to global health and underserved care.