Following a national search, Kari L. Franson, PharmD, PhD, BCPP, has been named to the newly created leadership position of associate dean for academic and student affairs at the USC School of Pharmacy, effective March 2, Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos announced.
Most recently the associate dean for professional education at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Franson is an educator with more than 25 years of experience who has focused on two areas throughout her career: practice development in health professions education and psychopharmacology.
“USC is primed to lead the nation in pharmacy education and practice,” Franson said. “I am honored to work with some of the most talented, caring and creative students, educators, clinicians and researchers in the world to make that happen.”
Her educational expertise is in campus and distance-based curriculum development, technology-enhanced assessment and learning, interprofessional practice and education and healthcare workforce development to address health disparities in both the U.S. and abroad.
A U.S. board-certified psychiatric pharmacist and Dutch-certified clinical pharmacologist, she worked with geriatric psychiatric patients for 10 years and has performed a variety of clinical studies spanning those in early-phase clinical pharmacology to post-marketing clinical efficacy studies.
She is interested in cannabinoid clinical pharmacologic effects in healthy volunteers and has guided national and international professional, legislative, media and commercial groups on the wise study and use of cannabis.
She received her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of California, San Francisco, trained at the University of Illinois, Chicago Hospital and Clinics as a resident in adult internal medicine and a fellow in clinical research/drug development, and received her PhD in Medical Education from Leiden University, the Netherlands.
“The members of our search committee and the faculty who met with her were impressed with her credentials and confident she has the diverse background and experience to provide new vision, leadership and strategy for the School’s Doctor of Pharmacy program in all aspects of academic and student affairs,” Papadopoulos said in announcing the appointment.