SCHOOL OF PHARMACY
Doctor of Pharmacy
PharmD
Program Details
Start Term
Fall
Deadline
Deadline, June 2
Integrated Curriculum
KGI prepares students to acquire knowledge and develop skills and attitudes to be competent and confident, practice-ready pharmacists
Connections to Industry
KGI introduces students to industry with a wide range of networking and coursework opportunities
Certificated/PharmD+
Along with a PharmD degree, KGI graduates receive a certificate in one of three areas
Leveraging close biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry ties with strengths in computational sciences and entrepreneurship the Doctor of Pharmacy program is unlike any other. Required and optional industry experience provides students with a breadth of hands-on training designed to enhance their skills and knowledge, while increasing their competitiveness in the job market. The PharmD program prepares doctors of pharmacy to fulfill a wide range of integral healthcare roles, whether at the corner pharmacy or in the corporate sector.
PharmD Curriculum
The PharmD curriculum ensures a clear and defined focus on the diverse set of skills needed for the evolving range of opportunities in pharmacy. Students take courses that provide them with foundational content, exposure to emerging topics, as well as elective courses and rotations within the certificate program. Generally, the overall curriculum is arranged into four categories: basic sciences, clinical skills, professional development, and experiential education.
The KGI Difference
For KGI PharmD graduates, career opportunities extend beyond retail pharmacy. While the majority of the Class of 2019 entered the pharmacy profession, another substantial group—18 percent—entered fellowships or jobs within the pharmaceutical industry.
KGI’s PharmD program introduces students to industry with a wide range of networking and coursework opportunities, including:
- Introduction to Industry course required for all first-year students
- Certificate in Medical and Clinical Affairs option
- Industry speakers visiting campus in-person or virtually each year
- Student organizations, including the Industry Pharmacists Organization
- KGI Fellowship Program
Certificate
Along with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, KGI graduates receive a certificate in one of three areas.
Medication Therapy Outcomes (MTO)
The MTO certificate program provides opportunities to develop skills to provide care for patients in rural settings, from under-served populations, in accountable care organizations, and throughout the continuum of care process.
Healthcare Management/ Pharmacy Informatics (HCM/PI)
The HCM/PI certificate combines training in management and healthcare technology to develop analytical and problem-solving skills using technology to enhance patient experience.
Medical and Clinical Affairs (MCA)
The MCA certificate program provides student pharmacists with the skills to provide strategic, tactical, and operational direction within medical affairs to expedite the development and delivery of safe and effective healthcare products.
Program Faculty and Staff
Gregory Reardon, RPh, MS, PhD
Program Director, Doctor of Pharmacy Program, and Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences
Prerequisites
- Anatomy and Physiology
- Biochemistry
- Calculus
- English
- English Composition
- General Biology
- General Chemistry
- Economics
- Microbiology
- Organic Chemistry
- Physics
- Psychology or Sociology
- Public Speaking/Speech/Interpersonal Communications
- Statistics
How to Apply
- Completed online application through PharmCAS
- Personal statement
- Resume
- Letter of recommendation
- Transcripts
- Must be a US citizen or permanent resident
- $75 non-refundable application fee
- Admission interview
Admitted students are required to submit a $400 non-refundable enrollment fee to hold their spot in the program.
John Krstenansky, PhD, MBA, FRSC
Professor of Medicinal Chemistry
Areas of Expertise: Forensic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Therapy Discovery and Development
Dr. John Krstenansky joined KGI in June 2013. His extensive professional experience spans several areas relevant to pharmacy practice. Prior to joining KGI, he was founding faculty, a professor, and the director of medicinal chemistry at the Department of Pharmaceutical Science and Research at the Marshall University School of Pharmacy in Huntington, WV. He also served as an associate professor of medicinal chemistry at Loma Linda University's School of Pharmacy. He has held several leadership positions in industry, including vice president, chemistry at Consensus Pharmaceuticals in Medford, MA, and vice president, research & development, at EnzyMed in Iowa City, IA.
Krstenansky held several positions at Roche Bioscience/Syntex Discovery Research in Palo Alto, CA, including principal scientist, senior staff researcher, and research section leader, and was a senior research biochemist at Marion Merrell Dow Research Institute in Cincinnati, OH.
Krstenansky is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Pharmacognosy, and the Southwestern Association of Forensic Scientists.
He holds an MBA from Golden Gate University in Los Altos, CA, a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BS and AB in chemistry and philosophy, respectively, from Loyola University of Chicago.
Quintin Broussard, PharmD, BCPS, BCCCP, BCNSP
Associate Professor, Clinical Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Critical Care, Fluid/Electrolyte Disorders, Nutrition Support, Objective Structured Clinical Examinations, Sepsis/Septic Shock
Dr. Quintin Broussard, who joined KGI in August 2018, completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a minor in Mathematics from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA. He received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. After graduating from the University of Houston, Dr. Broussard completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency and a PGY2 Critical Care Pharmacy Residency at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, TX, within the Texas Medical Center. He is board certified by the Board of Pharmacy Specialties in Pharmacotherapy, Critical Care, and Nutrition Support.
Prior to joining KGI, Dr. Broussard was an Assistant Professor of Clinical Sciences at California Health Sciences University (CHSU), practicing in medical/surgical intensive care and nutrition support. During his two years at CHSU, he was honored as the Clinical Faculty Preceptor of the Year for IPPE 3, P3 Teacher of the Year, and as the Course Director for the P3 Course of the Year (PHR 746: Patient Care III).
Dr. Broussard is actively involved in multiple organizations. He currently serves as the Pacific Regional Director for Collegiate Affairs for Phi Delta Chi Pharmacy Fraternity and on the Self Assessment and Nutrition Science & Practice Conference Monitoring Committees for the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. In addition, Dr. Broussard is a member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and Phi Lambda Sigma – Pharmacy Leadership Society.
Clinically, Dr. Broussard practices at San Antonio Regional Hospital in critical care and nutrition support. His practice interests include management of sepsis/septic shock, parenteral nutrition, and fluid/electrolyte disorders. Dr. Broussard’s research interests include evaluation of parenteral nutrition prescribing patterns and outcomes, incorporation of nutrition support education into didactic Doctor of Pharmacy curricula, and development and assessment of objective structured clinical examinations and clinical skills.
Kanika Bhandari, PharmD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Sciences
Dr. Kanika Bhandari joined KGI on August 1, 2021. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Texas at Austin and completed a PGY1 at Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System. In addition, she completed her PGY2 in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. She teaches therapeutic courses and establishes a clinical practice in acute care.
Stephanie Kourtakis, PharmD, BCACP
Assistant Professor of Clinical Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Ambulatory Care
Dr. Stephanie Kourtakis joined Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy in August 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Sciences. She currently serves as course coordinator and lead instructor in the second-year patient assessment and self-care series and director of interprofessional education (IPE).
Dr. Kourtakis earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences from Oakland University in Rochester, MI, and Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy in Ann Arbor, MI. She completed a PGY1 Community Pharmacy Residency at Mercer University College of Pharmacy and Kroger Pharmacy in Atlanta, GA, and a PGY2 Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Residency at Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Dr. Kourtakis is a Board-Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist.
Dr. Kourtakis currently practices as an ambulatory care pharmacist at Riverside University Health System Medical Center (RUHS-MC). At RUHS, she serves as a preceptor for fourth-year student pharmacists in the family medicine practice setting with emphasis in diabetes management, medication therapy management, and geriatric care.
Dr. Kourtakis is a member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the American Pharmacists Association, Phi Delta Chi Pharmacy Fraternity, and Phi Lambda Sigma – Pharmacy Leadership Society. She serves as a faculty advisor for the KGI chapter of the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) and the KGI California Pharmacy Student Leadership (CAPSLEAD) team.
Her research interests include the science of teaching and learning and diabetes outcomes.
Daniel Kudo, PharmD, FCSHP, APh
Professor of Practice
Dr. Kudo, who joined KGI in March 2017, is a clinical pharmacist with more than 20 years of hospital and health plan management experience. For the last 16 years, Kudo was a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) for a major pharmaceutical company.
Kudo received his PharmD degree from the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and completed a clinical pharmacy residency at Los Angeles County – USC Medical Center.
In addition to his hospital managerial functions, he helped to develop the clinical pharmacist’s role in the areas of adult and neonatal critical care, and the role of the pharmacists in the transitional care unit (TCU) at a 450-bed hospital in the San Gabriel Valley. As Director of Pharmacy of a regional health plan, Kudo managed the pharmacy benefit, and helped to develop quality outcome measures. As an MSL, he developed relationships with and gained insight from regional, national, and internationally recognized thought leaders in the areas of asthma/allergy, endocrinology, and cardiology. In addition, he identified research sites and coordinated both company-sponsored and independent sponsored research studies.
Mostafa Elgebaly, PhD, RPh
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Pathophysiology
Mostafa M Elgebaly RPh/PhD received his PhD in cardiovascular complications of diabetes in stroke patients from the Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics Program in University of Georgia Athens, USA. He received his pharmacy license from the state of Pennsylvania in 2013.
Elgebaly MM is a fellow of both the University at Buffalo State University of New York and Novartis Pharmaceuticals where he successfully completed a joint drug-development fellowship.
Elgebaly MM research interests include biomarkers development in diabetes and acute ischemic stroke. Specially, he is interested in investigating the role of MMPs (Matrix Metallo-Proteinase) in the injury of the neurovascular unit.
Elgebaly MM has about 10 years of academic experience teaching in multiple curricular formats including semester based, 10- and 2-week quarter-based systems. He has been using online teaching technologies since 2012 to teach to remote campuses and has experience in many integrated-sequence courses within multiple areas.
Elgebaly MM is passionate about research, seeing his students grow and succeed and serving the academic community in the USA and globally. He is very excited about the MSPA program and its great potential and prospect.
Talia Puzantian, PharmD, BCPP
Professor of Clinical Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Pharmacists and Mental Health Stigma, Psychopharmacology, Student Wellbeing, Substance Use Disorders
Dr. Puzantian, who joined KGI in January 2016, is Professor of Clinical Sciences at Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy. Prior to joining KGI, she was a clinical psychopharmacology consultant in private practice. Previously, Dr. Puzantian was a psychiatric clinical pharmacy specialist and an Associate Clinical Professor at San Francisco General Hospital and at the University of California, San Francisco. She received a BS in Psychobiology from UCLA and a PharmD from the UCSF School of Pharmacy. She completed a psychiatric pharmacy practice residency at LA County/USC where she was honored as Pharmacy Resident of the Year. Over the course of her career, Dr. Puzantian has been recognized with several teaching, research, and clinical precepting awards.
Dr. Puzantian was in the first group of specialists to become a Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist and has, in the past, served as the Chair of the Specialty Council on Psychiatric Pharmacy for the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties. She is an active member of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists (AAPP) and advisor to the KGI student chapter of AAPP. She currently serves on the California Department of Health Care Services Global Medi-Cal Drug Use Review Advisory Board. Dr. Puzantian’s scholarly interests focus on pharmacists’ roles in mitigating the opioid crisis, suicide prevention and mental wellness in university students, and equipping pharmacists with Mental Health First Aid training. She is Program Director for the KGI Naloxone Distribution Program and Principal Investigator/Program Director for the SAMHSA-funded Mental Health Awareness Training for Pharmacists (MHAT-Rx) initiative. She currently practices as a psychiatric pharmacy specialist at Adventist Health Glendale. Dr. Puzantian also serves as Deputy Editor for the Carlat Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, Addiction Treatment, Hospital Psychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry Reports and is co-author of several books including Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice and Child Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice.
Nazia Rashid, PharmD, MS
Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Clinical Trials Study Protocol and Design Research, Health Data Analytics and Informatics, Health Economics and Outcome Researcher
Dr. Rashid, who joined KGI in April 2016, is a clinical and research pharmacist with a health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) degree from USC. She worked at KPSC Managed Care Markets and Drug Information Department where she led and conducting various HEOR projects for 12+ years, including retrospective database analyses, prospective/registries, clinical intervention, translational research, formulary evaluations, value propositions, cost-effectiveness analyses, and patient reported outcomes. She has experience in creating many interactive tools for physicians and healthcare decision makers to utilize and to improve data gathering, collection and evaluation. Dr. Rashid has created many database registries and performs strategic planning related to involvement of informatics and database analysis. She loves teaching and has been a preceptor for many pharmacy residents for 10+ years.
Gregory Reardon, RPh, MS, PhD
Program Director, Pharmacy Doctorate Program, and Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Education and its Assessment, Health Data Analytics and Informatics, Systems, Computational, and/or Evolutionary Biology
Gregory Reardon’s career experience has ranged from pharmacy practice to academia to healthcare entrepreneurship. Before joining the KGI School of Pharmacy in July 2017, he was a faculty member at the University of Findlay and the Ohio State University colleges of pharmacy. Prior to returning full-time to teaching in 2013, he started and ran an independent research consulting practice. His company specialized in the analysis of healthcare data for measurement and communication of outcomes and population health statistics to improve the quality of patient care.
Dr. Reardon is an Ohio-licensed pharmacist who holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in pharmacy (pharmaceutical administration/outcomes research), both from Ohio State. He has most recently taught courses in pharmacy management, health systems, health economic evaluation, and quality improvement / safety / performance measurement. He maintains a passion for pursuing more systematic approaches to patient care, with an emphasis on analytical methods that derive meaning from healthcare data. He remains an active researcher with interests in assessment of patient needs, health outcomes and geriatrics. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on these topics.
Armen Simonian, PharmD
Associate Professor of Clinical and Administrative Sciences
Areas of Expertise: Health Data Analytics and Informatics, Pharmacy Informatics
Dr. Simonian joined the KGI School of Pharmacy in October 2014 from Sharp HealthCare, where he was the corporate pharmacy informaticist involved with the evaluation, selection, training, implementation, enhancement, and support of all pharmacy computer systems and automation at the six Sharp hospitals.
Simonian completed his prerequisites at the University of California, Los Angeles, received his PharmD degree from the University of Southern California, and completed a specialized residency in pharmacy computer systems with the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to his informaticist role, he has accumulated extensive dispensing and clinical pharmacist work experience in both inpatient and outpatient settings throughout the Los Angeles and San Diego regions. Over the past two decades, Simonian has held adjunct clinical professor status at a number of pharmacy schools and has precepted pharmacy students and residents from across the country on introductory and advanced pharmacy practice experience rotations in pharmacy informatics.
Simonian has been active in the health-system pharmacy societies at the national, state, and local levels. Both ASHP and CSHP have recognized him as a Fellow, acknowledging his practice excellence.
Derick Han, PhD
Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Pharmacology
Areas of Expertise: Mechanisms of Disease
Dr. Han, who joined KGI in June 2013, has spent much of his career researching the role of mitochondria in physiology and pathophysiology, particularly in the liver. As a post-doctoral researcher and then an assistant professor of research medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California (USC), his focus has been largely on mitochondrial remodeling in the liver caused by metabolic stress, such as alcohol feeding and obesity. He also has been engaged in research examining signal transduction pathways that mediate drug-induced liver injury.
Dr. Han was the recipient of USC's Research Center for Liver Diseases Pilot Project Award and the Zumberge Research and Innovation Award, and has been principal and co-principal investigator on several grants from the National Institutes of Health. His teaching experience includes serving as a lecturer and instructor at USC's School of Pharmacy and as an adjunct professor of biochemistry at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Dr. Han holds a PhD in molecular pharmacology and toxicology from USC and B.A. in sociology and biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jeniffer Hernandez, PhD
Associate Professor of Immunology, School of Pharmacy
Areas of Expertise: Infectious Disease and Immunology, Mechanisms of Disease
Dr. Jeniffer Hernandez, who joined KGI in August 2015, is an immunologist with an expertise in autoimmune disease and metabolism. The goal of her research lab is to investigate the role of the immune system on the pathogenesis of metabolic disease, such as type 2 diabetes. As a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Marc Montminy at the Salk Institute, she discovered a new role for the hormonal and metabolic sensor CREB and its co-activator CRTC2 in T cell development and function.
Dr. Hernandez received her B. S. in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles and conducted research in the laboratory of Dr. Judith Lengyel. She then received her Ph.D. from University of California, Irvine and conducted research in the laboratory of Dr. Craig Walsh. During her PhD training, Dr. Hernandez discovered the mechanism of resistance of autoimmunity in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis that harbors a deletion of the kinase DRAK2. Dr. Hernandez also has a passion for teaching and mentoring. In addition to teaching students in the class and lab setting, Dr. Hernandez also volunteers with educational outreach programs.