The UF College of Pharmacy community came together to commemorate the vital role of women in pharmacy during a Women’s History Month event in Gainesville on March 7. The event featured several faculty, alumni and student speakers.
Corey Perkins, a Ph.D. candidate, and Nicole Donato, a fourth-year Pharm.D. student, touched on their research, legacy and where they see themselves in history. Other speakers included Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., M.Sc., and alumni Suzy Wise, Pharm.D., ’09, director of pharmacy services at UF Health, and retired pharmacist Anita Thompson, ’54.
Thompson noted the resistance by others when she enrolled in the UF College of Pharmacy in 1950, as it went against societal pressures at the time.
“I was told a woman had to work twice as hard as a man to receive recognition – that shouldn’t be hard,” Thompson said, encouraging a laugh from the audience.
Once a predominantly male profession, pharmacy has became a women-dominated field over the past several decades. Today, nearly 70 percent of the UF College of Pharmacy’s Pharm.D. class are women.
The program ended with a portrait reveal of former Dean Julie Johnson, Pharm.D. She served as the college’s first female dean from 2013 to 2022. Marvin Mattelson, an artist from New York, was commissioned to paint the portrait.
