Pharmacy educators earn top honors
Nicholas Popovich
Two UIC pharmacy educators received top honors from the Illinois Pharmacists Association.
Nicholas Popovich, professor and head of pharmacy administration, was named Illinois Pharmacist of the Year.
Marlowe Djuric Kachlic, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice, received the Distinguished Young Pharmacists Award.
Popovich earned his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. from UIC (’68, ’71, ’73), where one of his mentors, Daniel Nona, encouraged him to pursue an academic career.
Even after almost 40 years, Popovich says he has not lost his passion for teaching pharmacy students.
“Teachers touch eternity,” he said. “They never know where their inspiration ends. I revere my opportunity to be an educator and influence those who I instruct and guide.”
Popovich spent nearly 28 years on the faculty of the Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences before returning to UIC in 2002.
He was president and chairman of the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and received five Rufus A. Lyman Awards for the outstanding annual research article published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. In 1997, he received the Distinguished Educator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.At Purdue, Popovich received five college undergraduate teaching awards and the university Amoco Foundation Undergraduate Teaching Award. He was inducted as a founding fellow in Purdue’s Teaching Academy in 1997.
At UIC, Popovich received the College of Pharmacy’s Urban Health Program Distinguished Faculty Award in 2005. Two years later, he was the recipient of the American Pharmacist Association Gloria Niemeyer Francke Leadership Mentor Award.
Marlowe Djuric-Kachlic
Kachlic’s award honors an up-and-coming pharmacist who shows commitment to the profession and community, leadership potential, professional aspirations and community service.
Kachlic, who received her doctor of pharmacy degree from UIC in 2005 after earning her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Valparaiso University, started and directs the UIC Community Pharmacy Program.
She volunteers at community events through her affiliation with the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists, where she is the UIC chapter’s adviser.Other awards she has received include the American Pharmacist Association’s Incentive Grant for Practitioner Innovation in Pharmaceutical Care for her residency project, “GERD Management Program”; the Rising Star Award from the College of Pharmacy Alumni Association; and the UI Hospital’s Caught in the Act Award.
