Following a competitive national search, Amy Lynn Seybert, who has served the past 12 years as chair of Pitt’s Department of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, has been named the pharmacy school’s new dean.
On July 1, Seybert succeeds Patricia Kroboth, who is stepping down as dean at the end of June after 20 years in the job. She is taking leave before returning as a part-time professor.
“Dr. Seybert has a long track record of outstanding leadership in pharmacy education and research, and I am confident that she will build upon that success as the next dean of the School of Pharmacy,” Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the Health Sciences, said in a news release. “I look forward to working closely with her to advance interprofessional education and transdisciplinary research in the health sciences, and I am deeply grateful to Dr. Kroboth for her service and her leadership over the past two decades.”
Seybert’s research focuses on the scholarship of education using simulation, as well as improvement of clinical outcomes in cardiovascular disease and critical care, with an emphasis on medication safety. Recognized as an international leader in simulation education in pharmacy, she pioneered use of human-patient simulation to advance pharmacotherapy knowledge, clinical decision-making and medication safety skills in health care professionals. Her clinical research in cardiovascular and critical care pharmacy practice and medication safety is credited with substantial advances in patient care.
"The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy has a phenomenal foundation and culture,” Seybert said in the release. “As the next dean, I am excited to build on the strengths of our research program, education and clinical practice to maximize our innovation and impact in health care."
Seybert serves on multiple national pharmacy education and society boards of directors, as well as the UPMC Center for High-Value Health Care. She has served as Pitt’s director of pharmacy residency programs and the pharmacoanalytics fellowship, as well as associate director for pharmacy programs at the Winter Institute for Simulation, Education and Research.
A native of Ford City, Pa., Seybert completed her undergraduate and doctoral education in pharmacy at Pitt. In 1997, she completed a residency in cardiovascular critical care pharmacy at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, returning to Pitt as assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics.
Seybert has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award, and is a fellow of both the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Kroboth announced in September 2021 that she was stepping down. The search committee for her replacement was chaired by Steven Reis, director of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute.