Faculty Focus

Med Chem professor receives UM’s Faculty Achievement Award

Christopher McCurdy’s outstanding career performance earns a campuswide achievement award.

hristopher R. McCurdy’s resume is filled with teaching, research and service accolades, but receiving UM’s prestigious Faculty Achievement Award this fall tops the list.

“There is no higher form of recognition than that of one’s own colleagues and peers,” McCurdy said. “There are so many faculty here that I hold in the highest regard and utilize for inspiration and mentoring, including some former FAA recipients. I love working with students, faculty and staff as they drive me to work harder and dig deeper.”

Provost Morris Stocks presented the medicinal chemistry professor with an engraved plaque and a $2,000 check. The award, which debuted at UM in 1985, recognizes professional scholarship, high scholarly standards and overall outstanding career performance.

“Dr. McCurdy is an excellent teacher and continually demonstrates a commitment to his students,” Stocks said. “His research is well-funded, and the importance of his work has been recognized by his peers. In addition, Dr. McCurdy is a committed servant to his department, his university and his profession. The Faculty Achievement Award, which recognizes the excellence of his body of work, is well-deserved.”

McCurdy, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmacology, joined the pharmacy faculty in 2001. Students completing their second professional year selected him as their Teacher of the Year in 2003, 2006 and 2010, and he recently became co-director of the school’s National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence – Center for Research Excellence in Natural Products Neurosciences.

Dean Barbara G. Wells said McCurdy makes extraordinary contributions to the university’s missions and is generous in facilitating professional development of other faculty.

“He holds students’ best interests as his highest concern, and he challenges them to think critically and to problem solve. He also reaches out to them to foster their interest in research,” Wells said. “He has won numerous teaching awards and is serving his second three-year term as a Distinguished Teaching Scholar within the School of Pharmacy.”

The author of more than 50 papers in professional journals, McCurdy has received research funding from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Science Foundation. The AACP named him an Academic Leadership Fellow, and the Pharmacy Leadership and Educational Institute presented him with the Albert B. Prescott/GlaxoSmithKline Leadership Award.

McCurdy is the new trends editor for Medicinal Chemistry Research and an editorial board member of Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Perspectives in Medicinal Chemistry, Open Medicinal Chemistry, Current Bioactive Compounds, Open Enzyme Inhibition Journal, Future Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacologyonline. He is on the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry’s editorial advisory board and Synergix Ltd.’s senior editorial advisory board for Medicinal Chemistry. He also is heavily involved in the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists’ Drug Design and Discovery Section.