Rate My Professor Hesham Al-Sallami

Hesham Al-Sallami is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Pharmacy Practice and Admissions in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Otago, Division of Health Sciences. He qualified as a pharmacist in 2001 and holds a Master’s degree in clinical pharmacy and a PhD in clinical pharmacology/pharmacometrics from the University of Otago, where he completed his doctorate in 2015 with a thesis titled "Optimising Patient Care by Individualising Drug Dosage." His career trajectory includes serving as Senior Lecturer in the Otago Pharmacometrics Group, which he co-runs as a full-time academic. Al-Sallami has been actively engaged in professional organizations, including the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand, Pharmacy Council of New Zealand, New Zealand chapter committee of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists, and the international advisory board of the British Pharmacological Society. He has participated in the Population Approach Group in New Zealand (PAGANZ) since 2008 as a regular attendee, speaker, conference organizer, and co-ran Beginners NONMEM workshops.

Al-Sallami's research specializations encompass clinical pharmacy practice, paediatric clinical pharmacology, clinical pharmacometrics, the influence of body composition on drug dose-response, and drug dosing optimization in paediatric and obese patients, alongside pharmacy education. Key publications include "Prediction of Fat-Free Mass in Children" (2015), "Development of a population pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic model of a single bolus dose of unfractionated heparin in paediatric patients" (2016), "Pharmacometrics in Australasia—Twenty Years of Population Modelling and Simulation" (2019), "The propagation of between-subject variability from dose to response" (2020), "Identifying the core concepts of pharmacology education" (2021), and "Optimal dosing of enoxaparin in overweight and obese children" (2022). For his contributions to teaching, he received 2nd place in the 2014 University of Otago CALT Awards for Enhancing Teaching and Learning with Technology, utilizing coagulation simulation software to illustrate complex dose-response concepts. His scholarly work supports advancements in personalised drug dosing for improved patient outcomes.