December faculty and staff features

Col. William H. Parrish, United State Marine Corps (retired), associate professor, Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs

Parrish has been appointed by the Secretary of Homeland Security to a two-year term on the Homeland Security Quadrennial Review Advisory Council (QRAC). 

The council consists of homeland security experts from federal and state government, private industry and academic institutions to provide comment and feedback to the Department of Homeland Security on mid-term and long-range strategic efforts to prevent, protect, respond and recover from threats to the United States. Members are appointed to two-year terms and meet several times a year.

Parrish has also served on the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Academe and Policy Research Senior Advisory Committee (APRSAC) for the past three years.  His service on that committee has been extended for two more years.

Parrish, a former senior official within the Department of Homeland Security, joined the VCU faculty in 2004.

Richard P Wenzel, M.D., professor and chairman, Department of Internal Medicine, VCU School of Medicine
Wenzel has been named chair of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Research Advisory Council through September 2011. The NRAC provides external consultation and review to the Federal Office of Research and Development.

Wenzel, president of MCV Physicians, is a nationally recognized expert on antibiotic resistance and its impact. He is the editor of five textbooks, has authored more than 450 publications and was the first editor-at-large for The New England Journal of Medicine.

Rita Pickler, Ph.D., School of Nursing
Pickler, professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Health in VCU’s School of Nursing, recently was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing for 2008. She was nominated by two current academy fellows and was selected for her outstanding achievements in the nursing profession. Pickler has demonstrated her strengths in nursing through her widely recognized research efforts, including preterm infant feeding.

Peter Byron, Ph.D., School of Pharmacy
Byron, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics in VCU’s School of Pharmacy, has been named guest professor of State Key Lab of New Drug and Pharmaceutical Process at Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry. Byron was affiliated with the SIPI scientists through previous research efforts at VCU in 2005. He is renowned for his investigative research with aerosol chemicals and chlorofluorocarbons, once commonly used as aerosol propellants.

Michael D. Fallacaro, D.N.S., Nurse Anesthesia
Fallacaro, chair of the Department of Nurse Anesthesia, was honored as 2008 Researcher of the Year by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Foundation. The award was established in 1999 by the AANA Foundation, the research and educational arm of the AANA, to recognize an individual who has made significant contributions to the practice of anesthesia through scholarship.

Fallacaro has authored and co-authored nearly 40 journal articles, book chapters and research abstracts in publications such as the AANA Journal, the American Surgeon, the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the Journal of Nursing Care Quality. He has lectured across the nation on topics relating to human factors and patient safety, the anesthesia work force and doctoral education. In addition, he has secured more than $1.25 million in grant funding for health care related training and research, with emphasis on the medically under-served.