Monash pharmacy educator recognised in 2023 King’s Birthday Honours List
Congratulations to Associate Professor Louis Roller AM, who has been recognised in The King’s Birthday 2023 Honours List for significant service to the pharmacy profession through education and governance.
Associate Professor Roller has had a long and distinguished career as an impactful and generous educator and mentor for generations of graduates of Monash’s Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (originally known as the Victorian College of Pharmacy), dating back from 1963 until his retirement in 2008. He remains an Affiliate of the Faculty, and continues to contribute to professional Pharmacy education activities through a variety of fora.
His time with the Faculty included five decades of teaching, and a wide variety of academic and administrative roles including Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, Associate Dean of Teaching, and Course Director of the Bachelor Pharmacy program.
Over the course of his career, Associate Professor Roller taught varying aspects of therapeutics to pharmacy students and also delivered postgraduate lectures to various professional organisations and continuing professional development lectures to pharmacists.
Associate Professor Roller is also widely recognised within the profession for his clinical articles in the Australian Journal of Pharmacy. He is the author of a large number of articles, letters and book chapters, and co-author of a book as well as a major contributor to various editions of the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary & Handbook and the Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic and Oral and Dental. In 2012, Louis was honoured by being made the inaugural life member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Sciences Association.
Since retirement from full-time employment at Monash, Associate Professor Roller has been heavily involved in a volunteer program to schools (years 5-7 and 8-12), Courage to Care, which emphasises the values of being an upstander by creating awareness of the dangers of discrimination, racism and prejudice, educating to challenge attitudes and behaviours, demonstrating that every individual can make a difference and transforming "Bystander" behaviour to "Upstander" action.
Additionally, he delivers many lectures to various universities of the Third Age (U3A) to a number of campuses on a large variety of topics.
“On behalf of the entire Faculty, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Louis for this well-deserved recognition,” said Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor Arthur Christopoulos, FAA, FAHMS.
“His passion, generosity, and patient-orientated approach to pharmacy education is still central to the way we teach our students today, and we thank him for the many significant contributions he has made, and continues to make, to both the Faculty and the profession over so many years.”
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