Distinguished College of Pharmacy Alumni Celebrated for Patient-First Values
LEXINGTON, Ky. (September 28, 2020) — This October, six accomplished University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy (UKCOP) alumni will become the latest inductees in the College’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni for 2019-2020. The college will recognize their professional achievements at their virtual Sesquicentennial Celebration on Friday, October 9, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. EDT. You may RSVP to participate in the event here. The college will also stream the celebration on their YouTube channel and Zoom.
The 2020 inductees include Young Alumni Award winners Ashlee Mattingly (’11) and John Wu (’10), as well as Lifetime Achievement Award winners William Crouthamel (’70), Patricia Rippetoe Freeman (’87, ’91), Lynn Harrelson (’73), and Donald E. Letendre (’79). Their peers selected these six new inductees for their exceptional contributions to their respective fields and their embodiment of UKCOP values.
“The UK College of Pharmacy is a top-ranked program in pharmacy education and research, in part, because of our outstanding alumni,” said Dean R. Kip Guy. “Our alumni have committed their lives to improve the world around them, and I’m inspired by their bold innovation, collaboration, and dedication to patient health and scientific rigor. It is an honor to celebrate their contributions to the field of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.”
To nominate someone for the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni, please complete the nomination form here. Nominations are collected year-round and selected once per academic year.
YOUNG ALUMNI AWARD
Ashlee Mattingly, PharmD
Young Alumni Award winner Ashlee Mattingly currently serves as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science. She leads training in sterile and non-sterile compounding, and is the director for PharmTechX, an advanced pharmacy technician training program, and teaches pharmaceutical calculations to pharmacy students at all levels.
Mattingly’s research focuses on the quality and safety of compounded drug products to ensure the public’s health and safety. Her work led to a 2018 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grant for a three-month, $148,000 pilot program. The grant was later expanded to a full three-year, $2.1 million endeavor to better understand the clinical need for compounding a product using a bulk drug substance, informing the FDA’s list of bulk drug substances used in compounding. Subsequently, the FDA expanded the project, awarding Mattingly and her team an additional $1.3 million grant in 2019. Mattingly now manages a research team of three postdoctoral fellows, two research pharmacists, a research librarian, a project manager, a web developer, and several student pharmacists interested in gaining research experience.
Mattingly is active in both state and national pharmacy associations and was elected to a three-year term on the Maryland Pharmacists Association Board of Trustees in 2018. Mattingly also served as the Education Subcommittee’s chair for the Compounding Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and was elected as the 2020-2021 Compounding SIG Coordinator-Elect position of APhA and will serve as the Compounding SIG Coordinator the following year.
John Wu, PharmD
Major John Wu is the pharmacy flight commander at the 18th Medical Support Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan. He directs 13 personnel in managing a $3.2 million annual budget, delivering 90,000 prescriptions to 50,000 beneficiaries. As the 18th Medical Support Squadron Deputy Commander, Wu also provides leadership in establishment and enforcement of policy, supporting seven flights, 168 personnel, and a $15.5 million annual budget.
Wu received a direct commission through the Health Professional Services Program while attending UKCOP. He has been an active-duty officer for ten years, serving in a variety of leadership positions, including the director of the pharmacy phase II program at Keesler Air Force Base, which trained 60 Airmen per year on 69 primary duty tasks, priming them for success at their first duty locations around the globe. Before his current position, Wu was the pharmacy flight commander at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He is from Louisville, KY, and has two children, Eden and Oliver, with his wife, Stephanie.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
William Crouthamel, PhD
William “Bill” Crouthamel is a pharmaceutical scientist, teacher, innovator and consultant, and the first PhD graduate from the College of Pharmacy in 1970. He received a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy and a master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy prior to obtaining his graduate degree from UK. Crouthamel was an associate professor at West Virginia University School of Pharmacy and University of Maryland College of Pharmacy before spending over 20 years at Hoffmann LaRoche, where he served as a global vice president and deputy head of the Roche US Research Center.
Later, Crouthamel worked at several innovation-focused companies, developing new therapeutics and, most recently, as a drug development consultant. He was also an adjunct professor at several pharmacy colleges, a course director for the Center for Professor Advancement in the U.S. and E.U., an outside expert for the FDA, and a co-founder of two successful clinical research organizations. Crouthamel was a founding officer and fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and served on the U.S. Military Infectious Disease Research Program. He is a licensed pharmacist in several states and practiced in both community and hospital settings, crediting his education at UKCOP for much of his success.
Crouthamel has been married to his wife Joanne for over 50 years and has four married children and 16 grandchildren, many of whom live nearby. Always the educator, he is known for holding “Grandpa School” with his grandchildren.
Patricia Rippetoe Freeman, PhD
Patricia “Trish” Rippetoe Freeman is the Earl Platt Slone endowed professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the UK College of Pharmacy and a university research professor at the University of Kentucky. She holds several positions in the College of Pharmacy, including director of the Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Practice (CAPP), associate professor in Pharmacy Practice and Science, and faculty associate in the Institute for Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. Additionally, Freeman is affiliated with numerous research centers on campus, including the Center for Drug and Alcohol Research, the Center for Health Equity Transformation, and the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center.
As the Director of CAPP, Freeman has worked tirelessly to advance pharmacy practice in Kentucky, establishing the Advancing Pharmacy Practice in Kentucky Coalition, which includes stakeholders from all major pharmacy organizations in the state working together to advance practice goals. For her role in advancing practice through policy change, she has been recognized by the National Academies of Practice as a distinguished public policy fellow.
Freeman’s research interests include substance use policy, with a particular emphasis on opioid use disorder and the role of the pharmacist in opioid-related harm reduction. Currently, she serves as a co-investigator of the HEALing Communities Study, a community-engaged intervention to reduce opioid overdose deaths in 67 highly affected communities, including 16 communities in Kentucky.
Freeman is actively engaged in state and national pharmacy associations, including the Kentucky Pharmacist Association (KPhA), the Kentucky Society of Health-System Pharmacists, National Academies of Practice, and APhA. She is a past-president of KPhA and a fellow of the APhA.
She received a Bachelor in Pharmacy degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and the UK College of Medicine.
Lynn Harrelson, BSPharm
Lynn Harrelson has provided senior pharmacy services since receiving her bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. As the founder of Senior Pharmacy Solutions® Medication Therapy Management Services, Harrelson's highly specialized consulting services provide assistance to patients in all levels of nursing and assisted living facilities, retirement centers, as well as to those seniors who reside independently in their home. Harrelson’s work provides medication therapy management services to seniors and others seeking to prolong their independence, maintain their health, and conserve personal resources. Her extensive experience in providing clinical pharmacy consultation services supports seniors in their desire to remain healthier and more active in their home for a more extended period.
Harrelson has maintained multiple positions on other local and state pharmacy associations and currently serves on the boards of Louisville’s All Care Community Center and the Kentucky Renaissance Pharmacy Museum. She is also a member of the Greater Louisville Aging in Place Alliance, Health and Professional Network, TRIAD, and Kentucky Safe Aging Coalition.
Harrelson has served on UK’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, representing the College of Pharmacy as an Alumni Ambassador since 1985. She has served as president of KPhA (1991), president of Jefferson County Academy of Pharmacy (1974), and was named the Jefferson County Academy Pharmacist’s Pharmacist of the Year (1981). Harrelson’s community service efforts have also been recognized both nationally and internationally. Most recently, she was awarded the KPhA Distinguished Service Award (2010) and has also been named one of Kentucky’s Outstanding Young Women (1983).
Donald E. Letendre, PharmD
Donald E. Letendre is dean and professor at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. Following his Doctor of Pharmacy degree and clinical residency at the University of Kentucky, he served as assistant director and assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Letendre spent nearly two decades on the staff of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) serving, for much of that time, as director of accreditation services; and, was dean and professor at the University of Rhode Island and executive secretary of the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory Commission immediately prior to his responsibilities at Iowa.
As a clinical practitioner, educator, association staff member, and now academic administrator, Letendre has served countless students and postgraduate residents throughout his career and has actively participated in the development and implementation of standards that have helped shape pharmacy practice and residency and technician training programs worldwide.
Among his many awards and special citations, Letendre received designation as an honorary residency graduate by New York’s Montefiore Medical Center (1989) and the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (1993). He was the recipient of the University of Kentucky’s prestigious Paul F. Parker Lecture Award (1998) and received the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award (1999).
Letendre is the eldest of eight children, son of a fifth-generation cabinet maker, first-generation collegiate, husband to his high-school sweetheart, father of four, and grandfather of ten, and a native of Acushnet, Massachusetts.