Five UNMC faculty members will be honored for 30 years of service to UNMC at the Annual Faculty Meeting on Monday. The meeting will begin at 4 p.m. at the Eppley Science Hall Amphitheater. An overflow room will be available in the Eppley Institute, Room 2009. The faculty members include Jeffrey Baldwin, Pharm.D., of the College of Pharmacy, as well as College of Medicine faculty Jean Deupree, Ph.D., William Gust, M.D., Michael Mann, Ph.D., and Robert Ramaley, Ph.D. Following is a short biosketch of each honored faculty member.
Jeffrey Baldwin, Pharm.D.
Jeff Baldwin, Pharm.D., is an associate professor in the department of pharmacy practice in the College of Pharmacy. He is the primary instructor and course coordinator for Substance Abuse and Recovering from Addictions, and is the course coordinator for Pharmacotherapy I. He provides instruction, primarily on substance abuse and pediatric topics, in other courses in the College of Pharmacy, the College of Nursing and the School of Allied Health Professions. Dr. Baldwin also coordinates and serves as the primary preceptor for the Pediatric Clerkship.
A graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, Dr. Baldwin’s research interest is primarily in the area of characterization of substance abuse attitudes and behaviors in health professionals. Additional scholarly activities include promotion of active learning in pharmacy education, development of standards for addiction assistance for pharmacy colleges and professionals, development of guidelines for pediatric and addiction education in pharmacy, and promotion of professional and public education about addiction.
Jean Deupree, Ph.D.
Jean Deupree, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the department of pharmacology. She is an active researcher and teacher.
She has been involved in teaching medical, pharmacy, physician assistant, physical therapy, clinical perfusion and graduate students and is currently the director for a pharmacology course taught to physician assistant and clinical perfusion students. She participated in a national committee that designed a model curriculum for teaching pharmacotherapeutics to physician assistant students and nurse practitioners. She has designed an interactive web based tutorial for teaching graduate students how to do receptor binding studies. This web site is now being used by students world wide.
In her laboratory, Dr. Deupree is studying neurotransmitters and hormones, which produce their effects by acting on receptors, which in turn initiates several signals within the cell. Dr. Deupree is particularly interested in adrenergic receptors that mediate the actions of epinephrine and norepinephrine. Her current research includes a National Institutes of Health-funded project studying the effects of drugs on adrenergic receptors during childhood and adolescence. Her colleague on that project is principal investigator David Bylund, Ph.D. She is also involved in a collaborative project to determine whether adrenergic receptors are involved in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
A doctoral graduate of Michigan State, Dr. Deupree’s peers have recognized her teaching excellence. She received the UNMC Outstanding Teacher Award in 1994 and the Carl F. Gessert Award for Dedication in Teaching in 1996. In 2001, the School of Allied Health Professions presented Dr. Deupree with its Outstanding Service Award.
William Gust, M.D.
William Gust, M.D., is an assistant professor in the department of internal medicine at UNMC. He also is chief of the section of general internal medicine at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Omaha and is associate chief of staff for education. While keeping a busy clinical practice over the past three decades, Dr. Gust also has undertaken extensive clinical research, focusing on high blood pressure and other heart disease, while directing the Hypertension Program at UNMC. He has served on the UNMC Faculty Senate for more than 15 years, including a two-year stint as president. He currently is on the Senate’s Executive Committee.
A graduate of UNMC, Dr. Gust is host to three broadcast shows. He co-hosts “Community Health Line” each week on KIOS-FM; hosts “Wellness Connection,” a monthly live interactive television program; and hosts “VA Affairs,” a monthly recorded video program. He is president of the Health and Wellness Consortium, which provides programming for many health-related channels in the Omaha area.
In 1990, the Nebraska affiliate of the American Heart Association presented Dr. Gust with a special achievement award as Communications Volunteer of the Year. That same year, he received UNMC’s Outstanding Service Award. He also has received special achievement awards from the Society of Medical College Directors of Continuing Medical Education and the NU College of Medicine.
Michael Mann, Ph.D.
Michael Mann, Ph.D. is a professor in the department of physiology and biophysics and is executive chairman of UNMC’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Dr. Mann has written 29 articles or research papers on brain research, including the evolution of the brain; two articles on teaching; and three articles dealing with the IACUC. Dr. Mann received his Ph.D. in neurobiology and behavior from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Recently, he has been more involved in teaching. Last year, he received UNMC’s Outstanding Teacher Award. He published a book on the nervous system in 1981, and his students still use the book, which is available on the Internet.
During his nearly 30 years at UNMC, he has been involved in the community. For more than 10 years he taught in Omaha Public Schools as a volunteer science teacher. Today, Dr. Mann is actively involved with the Boy Scouts, where he is a Scout leader and trains other adults to be leaders.
Robert Ramaley, Ph.D.
Robert Ramaley, Ph.D is a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology and a courtesy professor in the department of pathology and microbiology.
His laboratory studies center around the purification and structure/function studies of enzymes and proteins. There studies include the cloning and expression of developmentally regulated genes during bacterial sporulation and characterization and applications of the more thermal stable enzymes isolated from extremely thermophilic bacteria. During these studies, “new” previously unreported microorganisms have been isolated and characterized from a number of natural hot springs in the United States and from other countries.
Dr. Ramaley earned his Ph.D from the University of Minnesota and did his post-doctoral research with Dr. Paul Boyer (1997 Nobel laureate). He has served the community as treasurer of the Indian-Chicano Health Center, secretary for the La Plaza Community Health Center and is currently the program director and assistant district commissioner for the Scout Reach program for underserved youth in North and South Omaha.