Jamie Kellar is Associate Dean, Academic, at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy (LDFP). She is also an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, and a licensed pharmacist. She received a Bachelor of Science in Human Kinetics from the University of Guelph (2000), followed by a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy (2004) and Doctor of Pharmacy (2011) from the University of Toronto. She is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Netherlands.

Professor Kellar’s passion for teaching grew from her clinical role as an Advanced Practice Pharmacist in the field of mental health. She felt strongly that pharmacists were ideally positioned to provide care to individuals with mental illness, however few were doing so due to a lack of training and skills. This led Professor Kellar to engage in large scale teaching of mental health courses for both pharmacy students and practicing pharmacists. Dr. Kellar has been instrumental in redesigning the mental health curriculum in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program at the LDFP, paying specific attention to clinical therapeutics, patient assessment skills and the patient experience. A core element of her teaching philosophy is the use of storytelling as a mechanism for student engagement. She regularly incorporates the patient voice into her courses by including patients and caregivers as teachers. Professor Kellar’s innovative approaches to teaching have been recognized with three Faculty of Pharmacy Professor of the Year awards.

Professor Kellar’s commitment to the advancement of pharmacy education goes beyond her work at the University. She has been very involved with the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC), the national non-profit organization advocating for the interests of pharmacy education and educators in Canada. At the AFPC, she has led numerous educational initiatives, including chairing the Education Committee, where she led the production of the AFPC 2017 Educational Outcomes documents. These outcomes provide the educational framework for pharmacy education in Canada. The work was evidence-based, grounded in competency-based educational frameworks, and has had international impact, with pharmacy schools in the Middle East incorporating the outcomes into their programs.

Professor Kellar has also been an advocate for pharmacy education and practice reform through education research. Throughout her career she has watched the discipline of health professions education research take off, albeit with limited pharmacy uptake. In response she embarked on a mid-career PhD at Maastricht University. In March 2021, she was awarded the 2020 Rufus A. Lyman Award for the best research paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (AJPE) for her historical discourse analysis on professional identity in pharmacy education.

Professor Kellar’s innovative teaching strategies, educational scholarship and leadership have been recognized through the University of Toronto Early Career Teaching Award, and the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada National Award for Excellence in Education. She has also received the National Wellspring Pharmacy Leadership Award.