STUDENT UPDATES
Students Honored at Awards Gala Thirty-seven student awards were presented at the School of Pharmacy’s annual Alumni/Senior Awards Gala, held May 7 at Town & Gown. Among them, the Merck Academic Excellence Award was given to three students with the highest grade point averages: Seh Jin Rhee, Christine Lee and Joyce Lau. Class President Kimberly Moore spoke on behalf of the Class of 2016.
Daryl Davies presenting the Ronald Alkana Outstanding Doctoral Scholar Award to Anna Papinska
Special Assistant to the Dean Walter Cathey, PharmD ’62, with Merck Academic Excellence Award recipients Joyce Lau, Christine Lee and Seh Jin Rhee, and presenter Jeffrey McCombs, director of Graduate Studies
Festival of Books Sandy On, Lyndsie Okumura, Brian Phan, Maya Ballis, Alen Hakimi and Devin Panlasigui were among 80 student pharmacists who provided diabetes, hypertension and body fat analysis screenings to more than 500 Angelenos at the 21st annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 9. The event was the School’s largest health fair of the 2015–16 academic year.
Students Earn Top Awards at ISPOR
Yifan Xu and Nikhil Bhagvandas
Graduate students from USC’s program in Health Economics have won one or more of the six student presentation awards at the annual meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) in nine of the last 10 years. This year, Yifan Xu, who is pursuing a PhD in Health Economics, won the Best Student Podium Award for her
presentation on comparative effectiveness of two treatments for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Nikhil Bhagvandas, a master’s student in Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, won the Best Student Poster Award for his work on the cost-effectiveness of therapies used to treat bipolar disorder depression. Professor Joel Hay co-authored both presentations.
SUMMER 2016
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