Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice (Tenured)

I am an Associate Professor for Pharmacy Practice in which I have coordinated a number of courses in Pharmacy Practice and Public Health. Because of my passion to expose students to research in 2004, I initiated a pharmacy research assistant program; the Clinical Pharmacy Research Assistant (CPRA) Program, which exposed first and second year pharmacy students to research in pharmacy practice. I have continued to promote research as a faculty research mentor in various university’s summer undergraduate research program (URP) including the TSU-LEAP (Leadership, Education, & Advancement Pathways) program. In the LEAP program I participate in the HEAL pathway (HEALth disparities pathway) which health disparities is my primary research interest. As part of the All of Us (AOU) Research Program in which the goal is to advance precision medicine research and fuel new insights into human health. Through my research, I am able to utilize the AOU Research Hub which houses one of the largest, most diverse, and most broadly accessible datasets ever assembled. In promoting participation in AOU, I have collaborated with the Community Council of Greater Dallas to host a community forum that looked at “Medical Mistrust and Vaccine Hesitancy in the minority community, especially among African Americans, past and the present and now in the era of Covid” to encourage community participation in research at any level in which they feel comfortable in participating. I am currently involved in an AOU Student Research Initiative which is to introduce student researchers to the AOU Research Database for use in an active faculty-lead research project. I am also involved in the Advance Health Equity Program (AHEP) which looks to advance health equity in Priority Tier 1 and 2 communities through COVID-19 related health promotional activities conducted by Community Health Workers (CHWs), which aligns with the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s mission to reduce COVID-19 related health disparities and promote health equity among racial/ethnic minority populations. It also aligns with Houston Health Department (HHD)’s goal to build community infrastructure in health promotion to minority communities through CHWs. My role has been to engage underserved priority communities through innovative community outreach and engagement events to educate about COVID-19 vaccines, health equity, and prevention strategies. My clinical research in the area of health disparities looks at maternal and child health, hypertension in children, and genetic renal disease; specifically Polycystic Kidney Disease and its therapeutic management; disease prevention in the promoting of immunizations for all ages thereby increasing immunization rates and immunization registry awareness of the Texas Immunization Registry – ImmTrac2®. Additionally, opioid use and pain management to determine if patients are receiving the therapeutic care they need, as well as the use of medicinal marijuana versus opioids for chronic pain its legalization and pharmacist perceptions.