Alumni Updates
University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy alumni are leading dynamic lives, gaining recognition, getting new jobs, or investing in their personal lives through family, friends, and hobbies. Stay in touch with your fellow UW–Madison School of Pharmacy alumni across the country by checking (and sharing) Class Notes in each DiscoveRx digital magazine issue.
- See our previous edition of Class Notes from the Spring 2024 issue.
- Submit your class note for the Fall 2024 issue.
New Jobs/Positions
Tyer Selenske (BS ’24) will be pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin and working at Froedtert Health in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a pharmacy intern.
Elizabeth Brewster (PharmD ’24) accepted a position at Employer’s Health, a group purchasing organization, in Columbus, Ohio.
S. Mimi (Banerjee) Mukherjee (BS ’96, PharmD ’97) has been promoted to professor of pharmacy practice at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University.
Taylor Lueder (PharmD ’24) is completing a general PGY-1 residency at the Kansas City VA and will focus on ambulatory care and geriatrics.
Jake Johnson (PharmD ’24): “I will be moving to Des Moines, Iowa, and starting a position as an ambulatory care pharmacist resident at the VA Central Iowa Healthcare System. I couldn’t be more excited to start my career as an ambulatory care pharmacist but I will always look back fondly of my time as a badger!”
Elyse Keating (PharmD ’20) has taken on a new role as the Patient-Aligned Care Team (PACT) Pharmacy Program Manager at the Tomah VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wisconsin.
Dmitry Walker (MS ’19) has been promoted to pharmacy director of oncology and investigational drug services at West Virginia University Hospitals.
Michael Nagy (PharmD ’16) joined the Tomah VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wisconsin, to start up an endocrine clinic and has been promoted to editor of the Journal of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin.
Patti Thornewell (PharmD ’10) has been promoted to medical review associate director at the Exact Sciences Corporation in Madison, Wisconsin.
Jill Kolesar (BS ’90) has been appointed dean of the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, starting in July 2024.
Accomplishments and Awards
Jason Bergsbaken (PharmD ’12) was named one of the 40 Under 40 in Cancer, which recognizes rising stars in the field of cancer, at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting.
Staci Hermann (MS ’07) has been selected as a 2024 fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Retirements
Christina Walter-Godwin (BS ’83): “Greetings to all my fellow pharmacists. The profession of pharmacy has been so good to me. I did go on to receive my Doctor of Pharmacy along the way and have just retired from the University of Illinois, where I was the assistant director of UI Health Outpatient Care Center Pharmacy. I wish all the newest pharmacists and grads the best. Pharmacy has come so far since 1983 and only the sky is the limit!”
Personal Updates and Check-Ins
Madelyn Fischer (PharmD ’24): “I am so proud of myself and all of my classmates for all of the hard work that we have put into the past 4 years. I’m excited to see where everyone goes from here and to see all of the different ways we will use our PharmD degree!”
Katie Ploszaj (PharmD ’21) and Michael Beck (PharmD ’21) got married on April 12, 2024, in a ceremony officiated by fellow Badger Kenneth Gerhardt (PharmD ’21).
Cynthia Marienthal (BS ’79) has published a fourth novel, Fallen Angel, written under the pseudonym Daphne Walter. It tells the story of Lady Catherine Grey, whose forbidden marriage to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, threatened to bring down the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Palmer Taylor (BS ’60, PhD ’64): “He received his B.S. in pharmacy in 1960, completed his internship requirements in the same year, and then a PhD. in 1965 with the late Dale Wurster as a PhD thesis advisor. He then continued as a National Institutes of Health fellow in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the University of Cambridge and Medical Research Council in England under Sir Arnold Burgen. Taylor accepted a faculty position in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1970. With this new campus located in La Jolla, California, he was instrumental in establishing Pharmacology as its first basic science department of the UCSD School of Medicine. This setting and position later enabled him to establish the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the La Jolla campus, conferring either a Doctor of Pharmacy (clinically based) or a Doctor of Philosophy (research based) degrees. The PharmD charter class graduated in 1976, and its sequence of graduates have been major contributors to pharmacy practices in the State of California and nationally in the U.S. through a unique academic partnership with the School of Medicine featuring clinical and research endeavors. Research and academic instruction, often collaborative or coordinated, is found in both the pharmacy and medical schools under Health Sciences.”
Thomas Statz (BS ’73) is a member of Phi Delta Chi.
In Memoriam
Allen Lang (BS ’74) passed away in March 2024. After graduating from the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy, he purchased and operated the Edgar Drugstore near his hometown of Wausau, Wisconsin, later relocating and purchasing the Valu-Rite Drugstore in Medford, Wisconsin.
Benedict “Jim” Neuhauser (BS ’68) passed away in March 2024. He served the Madison, Wisconsin, community as the owner of Neuhauser Pharmacy on Monroe Street for more than two decades and earned a Citation of Merit from the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy in 1991.
Michael Schwartz (PhD ’59) passed away in March 2024. He grew up in Brooklyn and earned a BS in pharmacy from the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy, then serving as a pharmacist at the Tokyo Army Hospital during the Korean Conflict. He earned his PhD at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy, after which he began working on semi-synthetic penicillin. He served as dean of the SUNY Buffalo School of Pharmacy, as well as the University of Florida College of Pharmacy.
Warren Zodrow (BS ’58) passed away in May 2024. After graduating from the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy, he earned his medical degree and then served as an Army flight surgeon in Korea. He later spent his 32-year career as an anesthesiologist in California.
Leon Lachman (PhD ’56) passed away in March 2024. He grew up in Brooklyn and attended Columbia University before pursuing his PhD in physical and physical-organic chemistry at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy. He worked for CIBA Pharmaceuticals, Endo Laboratories, and United Laboratories before starting his own firm, Lachman Consultant Services. He’s authored several books, 70 publications, and received 11 patents in pharmaceutical testing and dosage form design. In 2003, he received a Citation of Merit from the School of Pharmacy, and in 2022, he established the Lachman Institute for Pharmaceutical Development at the School.
Jeanne Schultz (BS ’54) passed away in March 2024. Born in River Falls, Wisconsin, she met her husband, Charles Schultz (BS ’54), while attending UW–Madison. Together, they purchased Blumer Pharmacy in Monroe, Wisconsin, still in operation as Schultz Pharmacy today.
Carl Verstegen (BS ’54) passed away in May 2024. A Little Chute, Wisconsin, native, he served in the U.S. Navy for three years before training at the Balboa Park Navy Base Hospital Med School in San Diego. After serving at the Corvallis Hospital in Oregon during the Korean War, he returned to Wisconsin for pharmacy school and owned and operated Verstegen Pharmacy in Little Chute until his retirement.
Richard Helstad (BS ’54) passed away in May 2024. He was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and U.S. Air Force veteran who owned and operated Helstad Drug Store in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, for 34 years until he retired in 1996.