The School
The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is an internationally recognized leader in pharmacy practice, education, and research. We develop leaders in pharmacy education, pharmacy practice, and pharmaceutical sciences who make a difference on human health worldwide. The School offers opportunities in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences that are simply not available anywhere else.
The School is part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a major research university with a large teaching hospital and schools of medicine, public health, nursing, and dentistry. UNC anchors one corner of North Carolina’s famed Research Triangle Park, which hosts an abundance of pharmaceutical, biotech, and health-care companies. This environment offers abundant opportunities for collaboration in research, education, and patient care with partners in academia, industry, and health care. The School has specialized research centers pursuing advances in drug discovery, nanotechnology in drug delivery and cancer treatment, pharmacogenomics, and medication optimization.
In 2014 the School expanded its opportunities for collaboration by joining forces with the pharmacy schools at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and University College London. The three institutions formed the PharmAlliance, an international partnership among the leading institutions of their kind on three continents. The alliance will take on challenges that no one school could over come alone to advance and transform research, education, and practice in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences worldwide.
In 2014 the Global Pharmacy Scholars program was established in order to provide students an opportunity to be immersed within different health-care environments and cultures by going on a one-month international rotation. Since its inception, there has been a 1,900 percent increase in the number of students participating in an international rotation with the goal of providing at least 50 percent of each graduating class the opportunity to go on an international rotation. This academic year there will be 40 students going to one of nine different countries: Australia, China, England, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Malawi, Moldova or Zambia. Additionally, the School has created several global internships for students to be engaged in global health issues and has several student groups focusing on a variety of global initiatives, including PharmAlliance, a unique partnership between the schools of pharmacy at UNC, Monash University and University College London.
In 2014, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy received a $100 million gift from Fred Eshelman, the largest from an individual in the history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the largest ever made to a pharmacy school in the United States. The gift established the Eshelman Institute for Innovation, which aims to inspire a culture of innovation where imagination and creative solutions accelerate change in education, research and health care. The institute provides a mechanism for faculty, staff and students to seek funding for bold ideas, and strives to foster collaboration, creativity and innovation and stimulate commercialization of intellectual property and entrepreneurial development. The Institute also provides opportunities to educate and train professional and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Opportunities include a student-led Innovation Club where students are working to promote innovation throughout the School; an institute-funded internship and fellowship program designed to engage trainees in idea generation, innovation and entrepreneurship; and an innovation lab program, the E(i) lab, that brings together interdisciplinary teams of students to work together over eight months to contribute to solving real-world problems.
In addition to the doctor of pharmacy and graduate degree in pharmaceutical sciences, the School also offers students the opportunity to earn a dual degree from two other top ranked schools at UNC, the Kenan-Flagler Business School (Pharm.D./M.B.A.) and the Gillings School of Global Public Health (Pharm.D./M.P.H.).
Guided by its Strategic Plan, the School greatly accelerated its growth and has built a reputation for cutting-edge research, rigorous programs, and outstanding faculty, staff, and students that make it one of the most dynamic centers of learning in the nation.