Pharmaceutical, Social & Administrative Sciences Faculty

Amos Olusegun Abioye, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences

B.Pharm., Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria); M.Sc., Ph.D., University of Lagos (Nigeria).

 Dr. Abioye was trained as a Pharmacist (B.Pharm. degree) in Nigeria. He is a registered pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) United Kingdom, a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPharmS) and Great Britain Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (APSGB). He is also a member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) in the United States. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

 Dr. Abioye joined the Faculty at the Belmont University College of Pharmacy on August 1, 2022 as Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. His teaching activities include pharmaceutics, dosage form design, drug delivery systems, pharmaceutical calculations and advanced extemporaneous sterile and non-sterile compounding.

 Before joining Belmont University, Dr. Abioye has taught physical pharmaceutics, clinical pharmaceutics, biopharmaceutics, fundamentals of medicine design, pharmaceutical biotechnology, pharmaceutical microbiology, pharmaceutical calculations, drug delivery systems, extemporaneous compounding of sterile and non-sterile dosage forms etc. within the pharmacy education curriculum (B.Sc., B.Pharm., M.Pharm., M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs) for over 25 years across several countries including Nigeria, Malawi, China, United Kingdom and United States. He moved to Belmont University from the Gregory School of Pharmacy, Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach Florida where he was an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences for over four years.

 Dr. Abioye has held leadership positions within the Schools of Pharmacy including Sub Dean, Deputy Programme Leader, Module Leader, Admission Tutor, Chair of several Committees, Coordinator of Continuing Professional Development for Pharmacists, member of several Management Boards etc.

 His main teaching priorities include students’ academic success and distinctive professionalism through structured integrated learning activities, research-informed scholarship of teaching, cooperative learning, personal tutoring, personal development planning, professional mentoring and science-practice integration.

 Dr. Abioye’s broad research focus includes development of smart drug delivery and targeting systems with age-appropriate and flexible dosing especially for poorly soluble drugs, personalized nanomedicines and taste masking of ‘bitter’ drugs. His specific research expertise includes rational formulation design for brain delivery, quality-driven process optimization and precision-driven targeted delivery techniques to facilitate fortification and repurposing of ‘failing drugs’ including antibiotics, anticancer drugs, narcotics, antipsychotic agents, NSAIDs etc. He is also interested in clinical evaluation of the molecular basis of disease pathogenesis, antimicrobial resistance and therapeutic failure of medicinal products used in life threatening diseases and proffering possible solution models through rational formulation design and operational research.

 Dr. Abioye has successfully supervised many postgraduate research students to completion including MSc., MPharm. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. He is a recognized expert reviewer for several international journals as well as internal and external examiners for undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy programs. He has authored over 50 quality research articles in reputable international journals with high impact factors and numerous oral and abstract presentations at international conferences.

 Dr. Abioye is a man of faith, committed to leading a Christian life based on the Word of God. He looks forward to continuing to serve the Lord, and our precious students here at Belmont University.

Link to Dr. Abioye's CV

Anthony Blash received his Bachelors in Computer Science from Kean University in Union NJ, his Bachelors in Pharmacy from The Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy at Long Island University in Brooklyn NY and his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions at Creighton University in Omaha NE.

Dr. Blash has completed the Pharmacy Informatics residency at Creighton University’s School of Pharmacy and Health Professions in Omaha, NE and holds the distinction of being the first pharmacy graduate in the nation to complete a pharmacy informatics residency. He is a former Assistant Professor of Informatics at Drake University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences in Des Moines, IA.

Dr. Blash is primarily responsible for teaching in the healthcare informatics concentration at Belmont. As a result of meeting the Health Information Management System Society’s (HIMSS) rigorous standards for quality health IT or healthcare education, the College was recently named as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner (AEP). Belmont becomes the only pharmacy school in the nation authorized to offer HIMSS-approved review courses and training programs that prepare candidates for advanced knowledge in health IT or healthcare.

In addition, this curriculum serves as a solid foundation to prepare the student to take the Certified Associate in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CAHIMS) exam. CAHIMS is a new HIMSS health IT certification designed for emerging professionals within the industry (five years or less of experience). This certification demonstrates knowledge of health IT and management systems, facilitating entry-level careers in health IT. Many organizations recognize the CAHIMS for providing an international standard of requisite knowledge for certification; thereby assisting employers, the public and members of health professions in assessing healthcare information and management systems professionals. As Belmont’s sponsor of the HIMSS/Belmont partnership, Dr. Blash has designed a four-course sequence of classes to prepare Belmont student pharmacists for healthcare informatics and to sit for the CAHIMS certification. The college saw its first students certify at the CAHIMS level in 2015 and expects twenty to thirty students to certify each year moving forward. As a HIMSS Approved Education Partner, Belmont becomes the only pharmacy school in the nation with a Healthcare Informatics concentration leading to an internationally recognized certification in Healthcare Informatics which may be obtained before the students’ experiential rotations, residency inquiries and job searches begin.

With students at the center of everything we do, Dr. Blash has helped guide Belmont's pharmacy students to success in many real life informatics projects including:

• Belmont University College of Pharmacy Healthcare Informatics Student Selected As Inaugural HIMSS TIGER Initiative Scholar
• Belmont University College of Pharmacy student presents poster at HIMSS19 Global Healthcare Informatics Conference
• Belmont University College of Pharmacy Healthcare I Informatics Student Team Collaborates with National Organizations to Provide Health Informatics Services
• Hey Alexa! Belmont College of Pharmacy Students build A.I. program for the Top 200 Drugs

Dr. Blash came to the Belmont University College of Pharmacy from corporate America, having most recently held the position of Pharmacist Informaticist at Adventist Health West Corporate Headquarters in Roseville CA, where he was responsible for pharmacy informatics and clinical decision support initiatives at 19 hospitals and 130 physician and rural health clinics.

His practice site in Nashville is at the Dispensary of Hope which transforms lives through the philanthropic donation and distribution of medicine.

View Dr. Blash's Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Joseph Bonnarens joined the Belmont faculty in August 2020. Prior to Belmont, he has served as a faculty member, as well as holding other roles (such as administrator and community pharmacy residency director), at three colleges of pharmacy. He is a graduate of the University of Mississippi where he earned his MS and PhD in Pharmacy Administration. His dissertation entitled Examining the Relationships Within and Presence of the Service Profit Chain in Independent Community Pharmacy examined the use of the service profit chain model in determining the success of a service-oriented business model in an independent community pharmacy.

Prior to graduate school, Dr. Bonnarens earned a general science and pharmacy degree from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. He worked as a licensed pharmacist in a variety of settings: independent, chain and hospital pharmacies. He completed the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Executive Residency in Association Management and Leadership at ASHP headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. He remained in the Washington, DC area and became the first Director of Student Affairs and Associate Director of Management Services for the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) in Alexandria, Virginia.

Dr. Bonnarens has been very involved in professional service, as a member, presenter and officer in a variety of state, national and international professional pharmacy associations. In 2011, he served as the National President for Phi Lambda Sigma: the Pharmacy Leadership Society. His research interests include pharmacy management issues, pharmacy work force issues, patient care service development, history of pharmacy and leadership development. He will be involved in teaching in the Management track at Belmont, as well as the pharmacy law course.

Leigh Ann Bynum joined the Belmont faculty in August 2011. She is a graduate of the University of Mississippi where she received her Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Pharmacy Administration). Her dissertation entitled; The Relationship between Psychological Contract Breach, Professional Identity and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors among Pharmacy Faculty: An Equity Sensitivity Perspective identified differences in attitude and characteristics among groups of pharmacy faculty members that impact their behaviors at work. Prior to her doctoral work Leigh Ann worked for the University of Mississippi in their human resource department where she was involved with a myriad of employment issues and coordinated the employee training and development program. She also worked for Baptist Memorial Healthcare Corporation as the Director of Market Services. As Director she was involved in occupational health, physician contracting, sales, and marketing of their provider network.

Leigh Ann’s research interests include human resource management in healthcare, the impact of medication synchronization on patient adherence and employee job satisfaction, and the impact of pharmacy faculty members’ work related attitudes on their teaching philosophy and their ability to counsel pharmacy students. She is currently teaching courses in the Management track at Belmont.

View Dr. Bynum's Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Diaz-Cruz has spent most of his professional career working on interdisciplinary teams and collaborative research projects. A graduate of the University of Puerto Rico and The Ohio State University, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in tumor biology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

The major research areas of Dr. Diaz-Cruz focus in the areas of biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, natural products, molecular biology, and tumor biology. Understanding how these areas interplay and how they can be exploited to advance translational research is the purpose of his career. His research goal is to identify and further characterize the molecular mechanisms and genetic alterations underlying the development of breast cancer, to come up with better risk assessment tools and the best treatment regimen in a more individualized setting. A major focus of his research project is to correlate aromatase activity and expression in the mammary gland with breast cancer initiation and progression.

His scientific findings have been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international meetings. Dr. Diaz-Cruz has also served as a peer-reviewer for scientific journals, an academic and career development mentor, and as part as translational breast cancer research consortiums.

Dr. Diaz-Cruz joined the faculty of Belmont University College of Pharmacy in August 2011 as an assistant professor. His teaching responsibilities include Biochemistry, Pharmacodynamics, and Natural Products.

View Dr. Diaz-Cruz's Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Genevieve Lynn (Ness) Engle graduated from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA where she received her Doctorate of Pharmacy in May 2011. Dr. Engle completed the Regulatory Pharmaceutical Fellowship with a focus in Drug Information cosponsored by Purdue University, Eli Lilly and Company, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Engle joined the faculty at the Belmont University College of Pharmacy (BUCOP) in August of 2013 as the Associate Director of the Christy Houston Foundation Drug Information Center. She became Director of the center in June 2014.

Dr. Engle teaches the “Introduction to Drug Information and Informatics” and “Biomedical Literature for Pharmacy” courses within the curriculum. She also precepts fourth year pharmacy students on an elective drug information rotation within the Drug Information Center.

Dr. (Ness) Engle has been published in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, Annals of Pharmacotherapy, and Innovations in Pharmacy. Dr. (Ness) Engle has also co-authored two guideline publications for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Engle’s research interests include: drug information, professionalism, team-based learning, classroom technology, and qualitative analysis.

In addition, Dr. Engle has initiated and helped negotiate contracts as well as funding for two drug information focused fellowship programs: 1) Clinical Pharmacist Fellowship in Drug Information Cosponsored by Aegis Sciences Corporation and 2) Clinical Management Fellowship in Drug Information Cosponsored by HealthTrust Purchasing Group. Dr. Engle serves as the director of the Belmont University portion of these programs.

View Dr. Engle's Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Angela Hagan joined the Belmont faculty in the summer of 2010.  She is a graduate of the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy in Ann Arbor Michigan, where she earned her PhD in Clinical, Social and Administrative Sciences. Her dissertation, The influence of support groups and identity on goal setting and achievement in persons with type 2 diabetes, focused on the role of experiential support on self-management of diabetes with respect to lifestyle modification and medication adherence in a nationally representative sample (n=386). Prior to earning her doctorate, she taught as a Research instructor in the doctor of Pharmacy program at the University of Toledo, in courses including Health Care Delivery and Survey of the Pharmaceutical Industry.  During this time, she also served as pharmacy project director assistant in a Federally Qualified Health Care Center (FQHC), in addition to working as a microbiology lab technician in the Infectious Disease Pathology department for Promedica Health Center in Toledo, Ohio.

Her research interests include the role of medication therapy management (MTM) in the medical home model, social networking and experiential support on patient behavior, and medication adherence.  She is currently teaching core courses in the Management track at Belmont, in addition to Ethics in pharmacy practice.  Her electives, The use of social media in healthcare and Psychosocial factors of health-related behavior, focus on the determinants of heath-related behaviors in a variety of potential practice settings.

View Dr. Hagan's Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Ham joined the faculty at Belmont University in the College of Pharmacy in 2012.  Her primary teaching assignments are in the Pharmacodynamics series of classes. She also teaches electives in Toxicology and Pharmacogenomics & Personalized Medicine, as well as the third year Seminar class. She has a particular interest in increasing the knowledge of pharmacy students with respect to genetics/genomics (and related sciences) to prepare them the continually evolving field of pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine and their integration into pharmacy practice.

Prior to joining the faculty at Belmont, Dr. Ham was on faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (2003-2012) where her initial appointment was as a Research Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and an Associate Director of the Proteomics Laboratory in the Mass Spectrometry Research Center and was later appointed as a Research Associate Professor of Biochemistry and senior faculty in the Jim Ayers Institute for Precancer Detection and Diagnosis in the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. She maintains an adjunct appointment at Vanderbilt. Her research has primarily been collaborative in nature using proteomic and mass spectrometry approaches to study mechanisms of disease and for the discovery of biomarkers for detection, prognosis and treatment of various forms of cancers and other diseases. These collaborations have led to over 70 peer-reviewed publications. Her collaborators have ranged from cancer biologists and oncologists to experts in bioinformatics and analytical chemists.

Dr. Ham’s research interests include the use and further development of proteomic technologies and mass spectrometric approaches to enhance the discovery of protein biomarkers for personalized medicine. She is interested how protein biomarkers could be used to better understand the mechanisms by which drugs may produce their therapeutic effect and to distinguish subsets of disease that may require a more personalized therapeutic approach. Specifically, these biomarkers would be used to a) track therapeutic effectiveness or resistance of drugs through the understanding of their mechanistic therapeutic effect and b) find new molecular targets for the development of drugs for both new targeted therapies and co-therapies. She has a particular interest in using these technologies to study various forms of breast and colon cancer, primarily with respect to how drugs and resistance to drugs change the proteome, with a particular focus on tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance. She is also interested in the role that protein post-translational modifications play in the disease process and their potential use as biomarkers.

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Dr. Kiningham joined the faculty at Belmont University College of Pharmacy in 2009 after having trained in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky. Following her graduate work which concentrated on the role of endogenous antioxidants in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, she trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the field of oxidative stress and cancer.

Prior to joining the faculty at Belmont, Dr. Kiningham worked as a research scientist and academician in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Toxicology at Marshall University where she received funding from the National Institutes of Health to further her research interests. In Dr. Kiningham’s laboratory several separate, but related areas of research are in progress including:

1. Mechanisms of retinoid-mediated chemoresistance in neuroblastoma
2. Modulation of redox status in neuronal cells undergoing differentiation therapy
3. Neuroprotective approaches against methamphetamine dependent neuronal injury

Throughout her career she has published numerous peer reviewed articles and served on the Leadership and Professional Development committee in the Society for Free Radicals in Biology and Medicine. Currently she is a member of the Substance Abuse and Curricular Development Special Interest Groups in the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Dr. Kiningham’s teaching responsibilities at Belmont University College of Pharmacy are currently in the Pharmacodynamic series as well as Biochemistry and Immunology. She has curricular interests in course development, interdisciplinary education, classroom assessment and active learning modules.

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Dr. Allyson Spence joined the Belmont University College of Pharmacy in 2022 as an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Director of Co-Curricular Experiences. She received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Neuroscience from Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Shreveport and her Master of Science degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Louisiana Tech University. Upon earning her Ph.D., Dr. Spence obtained a postdoctoral fellowship where she performed research involving new potential vaccines for the treatment of methamphetamine addiction.

Dr. Spence has experience teaching pharmacy, medical, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, undergraduate, and graduate students in courses such as pharmacology, neuroscience, advanced physiology, and pathophysiology. Prior to joining the Belmont faculty, Dr. Spence was a faculty member at the Regis University School of Pharmacy, where she was a three-time recipient of the Regis University School of Pharmacy Award for Teaching Excellence and a recipient of the Regis University Rueckert-Hartman College for Health Professions Emerging Scholar Award. She was also presented the Excellence in Teaching award during her time at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. Dr. Spence is committed to providing a holistic, inclusive, active-learning approach which facilitates higher-order learning through relevant and engaging educational experiences.

Dr. Spence’s current research focuses on identifying evidence-based practices that provide an inclusive learning experience for students of diverse backgrounds. Dr. Spence’s prior research focused on identifying the underlying mechanisms involved in anxiety-related disorders, particularly substance use disorders, in hopes of finding a better treatment option for these individuals. Outside of professional interests, Dr. Spence enjoys serving others in her community, hiking, camping, and spending time with her husband and their three children. 

Dr. Stodghill’s general areas of research include the development and characterization of drug delivery systems. Specific research interests include the physical chemical characterization of solids including crystal forms, solid-solutions and polymeric films produced by hot-melt extrusion technology. Additional interests include the thermodynamics, and the development of  admicelles and adsolubilization as a novel drug delivery platform.

As an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Stodghill’s teaching responsibilities include the Pharmaceutics I and II series as well as the companion labs. This series of two courses covers pharmaceutical dosage forms and drug delivery systems. The courses concentrate on fundamental principles and definitions, and the basic science of formulation, development, testing, production and distribution of safe, effective and reliable drug delivery systems. The companion labs offer hands-on experience in dealing with concepts and techniques covered in the course and the opportunity to compound and produce several dosage forms.

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Dr. Webster serves as professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social & Administrative Sciences in the Belmont University College of Pharmacy. The pharmaceutical sciences are a group of interdisciplinary areas of study involved with the design, action, delivery, disposition, and use of drugs. The field draws on many areas of the basic and applied sciences, such as chemistry, biology, mathematics, physics, and chemical engineering and applies their principles to the study of drugs. The pharmaceutical sciences are further subdivided into several specific specialties:

• Pharmacology
• Pharmacodynamics
• Pharmaceutical Toxicology
• Pharmacokinetics
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Pharmaceutics
• Pharmacogenomics

Dr. Webster's research interests include dosage form development and stability with an emphasis on liquid dosage forms for pediatric use and injectable drugs. Dr. Webster is also widely published on the topics of teaching innovations, classroom assessment, active learning strategies and curricular design. Additional interests include the design and development of novel centrally active ligands. Most recent publications include a checklist for faculty mentorship programs, the use of on-line games in learning neuroscience, and the projected growth in pharmacy education and research over the next decade.

As a professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Webster's teaching responsibilities include presentations in the four course Pharmacodynamics sequence, the Technical Writing course and several elective offerings. Along with his appointments at Belmont University, Dr. Webster holds appointments as a senior research scientist/research fellow in the Vulcan Materials Center for Environmental Stewardship and Education and as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Designing.

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