BROOKINGS – Three finalists for the dean of the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions will visit the South Dakota State University campus the next two weeks.

Each candidate will spend two days interviewing between the main campus in Brookings and Sioux Falls where they will meet with leadership from Avera Health and Sanford Health. 

While on campus, the candidates will meet with university leadership, deans, researchers, faculty, students and staff. There will be open forums for each individual to engage with other key stakeholders and community and university members.

The three candidates are: 

Jane Mort

Mort has served as interim dean for the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions for nearly two years, managing a staff of 45 faculty members. 

She has been at SDSU for 31 years, serving in roles as associate dean for academic programs, coordinator of assessment, coordinator for West River clinical education, acting head of clinical pharmacy department, professor of pharmacy practice and associate professor of clinical pharmacy. Mort began her career at State in 1986 as an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy.

Mort has served on numerous university and professional committees in addition to being a pharmacy consultant to the South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care since 2004. She recently presented at the American Association of College of Pharmacy annual meeting and is doing research on the incorporation of pharmacy skills into the curriculum utilizing the learning model around community pharmacy innovation.

Mort was awarded a doctor of pharmacy from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1985 and earned her American Society of Health-System Pharmacists residency certificate from the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics the following year.

Mort will interview today and Friday.

James Clem

Clem has served as the department head for pharmacy practice since 2008. 

He oversees the pharmacy practice curriculum, fiscal responsibility, faculty recruitment and retention, and collaboration with health system partners. 

Clem’s tenure at SDSU dates to 1992 when he was an assistant professor. During that time, he also served in several teaching and professional roles at the Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls. He came to South Dakota from The University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio. He also held positions in The University of Texas at Austin, Scott and White Memorial Hospital and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

In his current role, Clem was instrumental in establishing the pharmacogenomic clinical faculty position at Sanford Imagenetics. He was also involved in recruiting the department’s first endowed position, the Hoch Family Endowed Professorship in Community Pharmacy Practice. He currently teaches entry-level Pharm.D. students in the areas of didactics and clinical rotations.

Clem earned his Bachelor of Science in pharmacy from the University of Iowa in 1989, his doctor of pharmacy from the same institution in 1991 and completed an adult medicine specialty residency from the Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas, in 1992. He was later named a distinguished alumnus for the Scott and White Pharmacy Residency in 2008.

Clem will interview March 19-20.

Alekha K. Dash

Dash has been the associate dean for research in the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions at Creighton University since 2015 and has served as chair of the Department of Pharmacy Sciences since 2007. He was named the Gilbert F. Taffe Jr., Endowed Chair in 2008. Dash’s tenure at Creighton dates to 1990 when he was hired as an assistant professor and he later became full professor in 2003. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center since 1994. He came to Creighton from the University of Minnesota, where he worked for nearly six years after living in Calcutta, India.

Dash’s research interests include the design and evaluation of novel drug-delivery systems, preformulation studies and solid-state characterization of drugs and dosage forms. He has been recognized nationally for his research and 12 of his former students have received national awards for their work. He was recently a recipient of the government of India University Grants Commission’s Raman Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research for Dr. Debasish Pradhan.

Dash earned his Bachelor of Pharmacy with honors from Jadavpur University in India in 1981, his Master of Pharmacy from the same university in 1983 and his doctor of philosophy in pharmaceutics from the University of Minnesota in 1990.

Dash will interview March 21-22.