Adam Persky, PhD Clinical Assistant Professor Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics

Research Interests

Pharmacy education, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of dietary supplements, interaction of exercise and/or nutrition on drug disposition and action, skeletal muscle physiology and pathophysiology and agents that influence form and function.

Adam Persky, PhD, has vivid memories of some of the milestone moments in his teaching career.

Take the first time he ever taught a class: a nutrition and exercise course at the University of Massachusetts, where he was pursuing his masters.

“I was absolutely terrified,” Persky says. “I don’t think I ever sweat so much in my life. I was like, ‘I know nothing about nutrition. I eat doughnuts for breakfast. What do I know about nutrition?’ They said, ‘Don’t worry about it. These are freshmen and sophomores. They know nothing.’ ”

Fast forward to 2003—his first year teaching at the UNC School of Pharmacy—and his lesson on hepatic clearance.

“My knees were shaking,” Persky recalls. “I was one step away from having an anxiety attack because it was hard material, and I didn’t want to screw it up.”

And then there was the time he was tossing out candy on the first day of class and nearly beaned a student with a miniature chocolate bar.

“I didn’t put enough loft on this one, and it whizzed at this poor girl’s head and went by her ear,” he says. “It was the first day of class, and I didn’t know these students that well. I just couldn’t stop laughing. Two years later, I still talk to her and joke about almost killing her. It was a great icebreaker.”

While teaching may not seem like something that came naturally to Persky—and the self-deprecating clinical assistant professor might be the first to tell you so—it has become his passion. Despite his initial anxiety about teaching the class at UMass, Persky enjoyed the experience, in part because of his interest in the course subject and in part because of the interaction with students.

By the time he earned his masters in exercise science, he had decided that he wanted to become a faculty member so that he could teach. Positive teaching experiences at the University of Florida, where he earned a PhD, reinforced his commitment to the classroom. After a fellowship at UNC, he joined the faculty at the School, with teaching being his primary responsibility.

“If I had to be a faculty member and not teach, I don’t think I’d be here,” Persky says. “Research is fun. I like research, and I like publishing, but I like the interaction in class with the students.”

The nervousness he felt in that first class at UMass hasn’t gone away, but Persky says that’s not a bad thing, even if he has to cope with the preclass jitters by pacing around his office while fiddling with a soft baseball bat.

“The day I stop getting nervous before I teach is the day I’m in trouble,” he says. “That nervous energy helps me out. Baseball players play 180 games. How can you be excited after 180 games? You figure at some point you get tired of it, but I guess it’s the energy of playing. And this is the energy of teaching.

“To this day I still get nervous before I teach. You have in your head the way things should go, and you want things to go that way. You hope they do, but they never actually do. You leave class thinking you are the worst thing to ever happen to the word 'teacher.'"

His students and peers obviously disagree with that performance assessment. Near anxiety attacks and candy-related mishaps notwithstanding, Persky has earned several teaching awards, most recently receiving honorable mention in the Innovations in Teaching competition sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Click on the links below to read about Persky's work.