2025
The 2025 Gala took place on Sunday, February 23, 2025, at the Langham Huntington, Pasadena, Los Angeles.
2025 Alumni Award Recipients
Jessica Abraham, PharmD '11
Young Alumni Award
As director of Population Health, Jessica Abraham joins with stakeholders from the local to the global to develop value-based pharmacy strategies for enhancing communities’ wellbeing. She also directs the USC Virtual Pharmacist Care Center, featuring a team of clinical pharmacists, technicians, residents, interns and students that provides medication management services remotely. In addition, she is part of the California Right Meds Collaborative, which pairs physicians with pharmacists to save time, money and lives. Abraham was one of the lead pharmacists providing care as part of USC’s $12 million grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation promoting collaborations between pharmacists and physicians to improve patient care outcomes while reducing costs. She completed her Doctor of Pharmacy and PGY-1 pharmacy practice residency in ambulatory care at USC Mann.
Ben Cohen, PhD '20
Innovation in Pharmacoeconomics Award
Ben Cohen served in various roles at the consulting firm Stage Analytics before being promoted to director of Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR). He earned a PhD in pharmaceutical and health economics at the USC Mann School, where his dissertation focused on evaluating the costs and benefits of spending in chronic diseases using administrative claims, microsimulations and survey data. He earned a bachelor of arts in psychology from Pitzer College and a Master of Public Health from Columbia University. Prior to joining Stage, Cohen interned at Amgen and was an HEOR fellow at Novartis.
Josephine & William Heeres, PharmD '63
Lifetime Achievement Award
Josephine and William “Bill” Heeres have been ardent supporters of USC Mann for decades. In 2002, they provided a gift to establish the William A. and Josephine A. Heeres Chair in Community Pharmacy. They also led the Heeres Challenge, which raised more than $1 million to renovate USC Mann teaching facilities. Bill Heeres served as chair of the school’s Board of Councilors and its $100 million Boldly First fundraising initiative. A community pharmacist for more than 50 years, he is a second-generation Trojan pharmacist whose father, Nicholas, graduated from USC in 1934. Josephine Heeres has shared her husband’s passion for community pharmacy, working beside him in the Riverside Pharmacy.
Alex Kang, PharmD, MBA
Honorary Alumni Award
As chief pharmacist for the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, Alex Kang oversees a variety of departments charged with ensuring access to quality care for Los Angeles County’s vulnerable and low-income communities. He held clinical pharmacist and managerial positions at a number of other health plans before being promoted to his current role. After receiving USC bachelor’s degrees, Kang earned a Doctor of Pharmacy from University of the Pacific and completed a managed care residency at Health Net Pharmaceutical Services. He is a California board-licensed advanced practice pharmacist and is dual board-certified in pharmacotherapy and ambulatory care. He received a Master of Business Administration from UCLA but refuses to chant the UCLA eight clap.
Vinson Lee, PharmD '06
Distinguished Alumni Award
Vinson Lee has more than 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, managed care pharmacy, consulting and academia. His leadership roles span commercial market access, medical affairs, and health economics and outcomes research. He has served as a director of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) and as president of the California Pharmacists Association. Lee is an adjunct assistant professor as USC Mann, coordinating the managed care and pharmaceutical commercialization elective. In addition, he serves as the co-faculty adviser of the USC Mann AMCP student chapter. Lee holds a Doctor of Pharmacy from USC Mann, and a Master of Science degree in cell and neurobiology from the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
David Makhani, PharmD '87
Dean’s Medallion Award
David Makhani co-founded MDR, the largest independent fertility pharmacy in the country. MDR specializes in personalized fertility medication care, working closely with reproductive endocrinologists across the nation. At the Mann School, Makhani, a third-generation pharmacist, made a leadership gift to create the David and Sheila Makhani Family Legacy Tree, located on the first floor of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Center. The tree serves as an enduring reminder of the alumni and donors who foster the school’s continued growth—any alumnus, student or friend of the school can name their own leaf on the tree.
Frances Richmond, PhD
Innovation in Regulatory Science Award
Frances Richmond served as director of the D.K. Kim International Center for Regulatory Science and was founding chair of the Department of Regulatory and Quality Sciences at USC Mann. She began at USC as the first director of Regulatory, Clinical and Quality Affairs at the Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering. Richmond was educated as a neurophysiologist at Queen’s University in Canada, where she later served on the faculty. She completed postdoctoral studies at the Université de Montréal and at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her research partnerships have included the NIH, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science, and Consortium for Technology and Innovation in Pediatrics. Richmond developed the USC-APEC Center for Training Excellence.
David Seto, PharmD '15
Community Service Award
David Seto earned his PharmD from the Mann School and completed a residency with USC Ambulatory Care. Now, he is a pharmacist and pharmacy program coordinator in ambulatory and primary care at Cedars-Sinai. He is an active, generous and esteemed preceptor for USC students, is an advisor for the USC Medical and Pharmacy Student Collaboration, and serves many other USC groups in addition to providing personalized care for his patients.
Jie Shen
Research achievement award
Starting her career at Allergan, Jie Shen has more than 20 years of expertise in drug development, from discovery to clinical proof-of-concept studies in numerous therapeutic areas. She has contributed to global approvals for many products serving unmet needs in patients. Shen specializes in translational characterization of locally administered drug therapies, including via sustained and targeted drug delivery. At AbbVie, she leads a department responsible for bioanalysis, biomarker, immunogenicity/immune-safety, nonclinical pharmacokinetics and clinical pharmacology. She also serves on the AbbVie Community of Science Scientific Leadership Council and the Joint Governance Committee for the AbbVie/Capsida Biotherapeutics collaboration on adeno-associated virus engineering for ophthalmic indications. Shen holds a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from USC Mann.
Highlights from the 2024 Alumni Awards Gala
Past Honorees
Community Service Award
2024: Raffi Svadjian, PharmD ’03, MBA
2023: Vaccination Volunteers
2022: Reda Alhoussayni, PharmD ’00, MBA
2019: Ken Thai, PharmD ’02
2018: Lisa Gunther Lum, PharmD ’86
2017: Roslyn Blake, PharmD ’92
Dean's Medallion Award
2024: Robert Popovian, PharmD ’93, MS ’96
2023: Richard Dang, PharmD ’13
2022: Edward Martin Lieskovan, PharmD ’85, MBA ’90
2019: Leonard D. Schaeffer
2018: Dong Koo (D.K.) Kim
2017: Rita Shane, PharmD ’78
Distinguished Alumni Award
2024: Steven Dohi, PharmD ’84
2023: David Truong, PharmD ’07, MS ’07
2022: Linh Lee, PharmD ’01
2019: Sohail Masood, PharmD ’88
2018: Irv Sitkoff, PharmD ’54
2017: Charles Leiter, PharmD ’83
Honorary Alumni Award
2024: Ramesh Upadhyayula, BPharm, RPh, APh
2023: Jimmie L. Overton, PharmD
2022: Hattie Rees Hanley, MPP
2019: Tony Kuo, MD, MSHS
2018: Shushma Patel, MBA, RPh
2017: Michael Hochman, MD, MPH
Pharmaceutical Health Economics Award
2024: Annie Ogostalick, PharmD ’97, MS ’00
2023: Jeffrey S. McCombs, PhD
2022: Robert Popovian, PharmD ’93, MS ’97
2019: Parvez Mulani, MA Economics ’00, PhD ’03
2018: Craig Cheetham, PharmD ’78, MS ’97
2017: Yong Yuan, MA Economics ’96, PhD ’98
Regulatory Science Award
2024: Mary Ellen Cosenza, PhD, MS ’08
2023: Duane Mauzey, DRSc ’12
2022: Weicheng Wu, MS ’03, PhD ’04
2019: Martin (Marty) Solberg, MS ’08, DRSc ’11
2018: Susan McCune, MD
2017: Peter Lassoff, PharmD ’86
Research Achievement Award
2024: Eric Forssen, PharmD ’77, PhD ’81
2023: Charles W. Stark, PharmD ’82
2022: Hovik Gukasyan, PhD ’04
2019: Li-Jiuan (Rita) Shen
2018: Jason (Jiansheng) Wan, PhD ’91
2017: Eric Q. Wu, MA ’00, MSc ’02, PhD ’03
Young Alumni Award
2024: Michael Pazirandeh, PharmD ’11
2023: Lilia Xu, PharmD ’12
2022: Grace Cheng, PharmD ’13
2019: Debrina Johnson, PharmD ’13
2018: Gustavus A. Aranda Jr., PharmD ’04, MS ’06
2017: Danielle C. Colayco, PharmD ’08, MS ’10
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
2017: Mel Baron, PharmD, MPA
