Michael W. McKenzie, Ph.D., ʼ72, professor of pharmacotherapy and translational research at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, was honored with the 2016 University of Florida College of Pharmacy’s Outstanding Alumnus Award during the spring commencement ceremony. The award is presented each year to an alumnus who has made significant contributions to the pharmacy profession.
McKenzie is in his 44th year as a faculty member at the College of Pharmacy and has served 32 of those years as the associate dean for student affairs. During his tenure, he has overseen the student recruitment, retention and admissions process for the college and has enhanced the services available to students and faculty.
A gradate of Samford University with a B.S. degree in pharmacy, McKenzie went on to obtain an M.S. degree in hospital pharmacy from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in clinical pharmacy from Purdue University. In 1972, he was hired as one of the first clinical faculty members at the College of Pharmacy, and he assumed clinical responsibilities in the pediatric department at UF Health Shands Hospital coordinating the clinical pharmacy clerkship program, lecturing on pediatric pharmacy in the therapeutics course and coordinating an introductory pharmacology course for nursing students.
As a faculty member, he was one of the first pharmacists in the country to develop a pediatric clinical clerkship site, a pediatric pharmacy course and publish data about child abuse and neglect to draw pharmacists’ attention to this problem. For 24 years, he coordinated and taught a UF Honors Seminar: In Search of Magic Bullets for students in the Honors Program at the University of Florida, and in 2016 he helped organize, implement and teach a new Medications and Health course for undergraduates at UF. He was chosen twice as a recipient of the AACP Lyman Award as co-author for the best article in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, and he has published more than 80 articles and chapters in the professional literature and made numerous presentations at continuing education and professional meetings.
In addition to the College of Pharmacy Outstanding Alumnus Award, McKenzie collected two prestigious honors in the spring of 2016. The UF Honors Program named him as its Honors Professor of the Year for 2015-16, and he was nominated by pharmacy students and selected by the college’s Awards Committee as the Faculty Advisor of the Year.
McKenzie and his wife, Lynda, have two children. Mark is a graduate of the University of Florida and is completing the first professional year of studies in the Pharm.D. program in the College of Pharmacy. Amanda is a graduate of UF and is a television news reporter with News 13 in Orlando. Lynda is a registered nurse who served for many years as a researcher and teacher on the faculty in the College of Pharmacy and as a researcher in the College Medicine.