Dr. Sarah Vordenberg Named Recipient of 2020 Teaching Excellence Award

Sarah Vordenberg, PharmD, has received the 2020 Teaching Excellence award. This award recognizes exceptional teaching in the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy’s PharmD and PhD programs. Dr. Vordenberg is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Clincal Pharmacy. 

Dr. Vordenberg earned her Doctor of Pharmacy and Master of Public Health degrees from Northeast Ohio Medical University in 2012 and 2013, respectively. She completed a PGY1 Community Pharmacy Residency with Kroger and Ohio Northern University. She joined the faculty at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy as a clinical assistant professor in 2013 and was promoted to clinical associate professor in 2019.

Dr. Vordenberg currently teaches the Pharmacy Practice Skills I and Self-Care Therapeutics courses to first year PharmD students. She is the pharmacist preceptor for P2 students during their community health introductory pharmacy practice experience. She participated in the University of Michigan Interprofessional Leadership Fellow program and now manages a student-supported, monthly interprofessional health screening clinic at a low-income apartment complex in Ann Arbor.

Dr. Vordenberg’s current educational research interests focus on the use of simulation to increase pharmacy student learning and the implementation of interprofessional education in the community. For example, she evaluated the implementation of a virtual program, MyDispense, to simulate medication dispensing and self-care patient interactions. She is a member of the MyDispense International Steering Committee and is the co-founder of the MyDispense USA Community. In almost all of her research and subsequent publications, she involves student pharmacists as research assistants and co-authors. Finally, she is currently completing a research fellowship through the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan where she is studying how older adults make decisions about deprescribing (stopping) their medications.