Karen Hassell is a Professor of Social Pharmacy and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the California Northstate University College of Pharmacy, Elk Grove, California, USA. She earned her PhD in Pharmacy and Sociology from the University of Manchester, in England, UK. Dr Hassell held a number of key managerial positions at her former institution, including roles as Research Director, Head of the Pharmacy Practice Division, and Deputy Head of School. She was also Director of the Centre for Pharmacy Workforce Studies, where she was in charge of a major research programme on the pharmacy labor market and workforce behaviour and practice. Her most recent grants before leaving the United Kingdom included government funding to investigate clinical productivity in community pharmacies and the organisational factors associated with its variation, and a study examining the contribution pharmacists make to public health. Although not a pharmacist Dr Hassell has 23 years’ experience as a pharmacy academic, teaching research methods, social pharmacy, and health and workforce policy to pharmacy students; she has also supervised Masters students and over 10 PhD students, managed and mentored other academics, peer reviewed grants and manuscripts for a wide range of academic journals, and held a number of external advisory roles to government, and within the wider pharmacy profession. She has received national recognition for and been invited to speak at many national and international conferences on her research; most recently she was part of a team collectively awarded the Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year Award in recognition of work in producing a ‘Road Map’ for the UK pharmacy profession. So far Dr. Hassell’s research has generated over 120 peer-reviewed publications in scholarly and professional or popular journals; she has also authored 1 book, 5 book chapters, and more than 130 conference papers. Her publications have been cited over 1800 times, and her h-index is currently 23.

Pharmacy