UW News

February 22, 2007

Sid Nelson named Outstanding Dean of the Year

UW School of Pharmacy Dean Sid Nelson has been named Outstanding Dean of the Year by the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP). Nelson was chosen from a pool of nearly 100 pharmacy deans in the United States to receive the honor.

The award was established in 2004 to recognize a school or college dean who has made significant contributions to the APhA-ASP chapter and promoted, with distinction, the welfare of student pharmacists through various community service, leadership and professional activities. It represents APhA’s appreciation for the recipient’s leadership, inspiration, and outstanding guidance to APhA, the profession and pharmacy students. Nelson will be recognized at the APhA-ASP Awards Ceremony Monday, March 19, at the APhA Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

“I am extremely honored to have been nominated by our students for this award and for their nomination to be supported by School of Pharmacy faculty, staff, and alumni,” Nelson said. “It is all these people together who make the UW School of Pharmacy one of the top programs in the country and it is their support, and enthusiasm, along with that of my loving wife and family, that energizes me and makes me want to get up and go to work each morning.”

Nelson is well-respected and admired by his students, faculty, and peers. His leadership has resulted in the UW’s first-place ranking in National Institutes of Health funding among pharmacy schools, as well as provided the support for students to serve in numerous regional and national leadership positions.

“In order for pharmacy students to flourish as leaders, they must have an environment that inspires them to have confidence in themselves, provides the support they need to be successful, and values student involvement,” explained Nanci Murphy, associate dean of academic and student programs. “I believe no one accomplishes this better than Dean Nelson.”

In its statement announcing the award, the APhA-ASP noted that “Dean Nelson encourages students to become actively involved in shaping the policies, practices and future directions of the pharmacy profession…Dean Nelson shows his support financially, administratively, and socially…He is a dean who knows each student by name.”

Nelson is a professor of medicinal chemistry in the school and chair of the UW Health Sciences Board of Deans. He received his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the UW in 1968 and his doctoral degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1974. After three years at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he returned to the UW as an assistant professor in 1977, and was promoted to professor of medicinal chemistry in 1983. He was a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden from 1985-86. Nelson became dean of the School of Pharmacy in 1995 and chair of the Health Sciences Board of Deans in 2001. He teaches courses in organic medicinal chemistry and clinical chemistry and diagnostics to pharmacy students and lectures to graduate students on drug metabolism.

As a researcher, he is funded by NIH for his research on reactive drug metabolites, structure-toxicity relationships and cytochrome P450 structure-function relationships. He received the John J. Abel Award for research from the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 1981, and was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986. In 1990, Nelson received the Alumnus of the Year Award from the UW School of Pharmacy, and in 1992 the Sato Memorial International Award from the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan for excellence in research. In 1995 he received the Gilbaldi Excellence in Teaching Award from the graduating class of pharmacy students. In 2002 he was listed as an Institute for Scientific Information highly cited research author.