Robert “Bobby” Helmer, PharmD is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy. Dr. Helmer joined the Mobile campus faculty in August 2012 and currently practices with the Internal Medicine services at the University of South Alabama Medical Center. His professional interests include respiratory disorders, neurological disorders, patient education, and health literacy.

Additionally, he serves as the Assistant Director of Experiential Programs for the Mobile Campus. In this role, he is a strategic member of HSOP’s experiential programs team and contributes to the development, implementation, and continuous quality improvement of HSOP’s experiential programs. He provides administrative oversight of IPPE, APPE, IPE, and co-curricular activities that are provided for students on the Mobile Campus and within the Mobile region. Dr. Helmer also works to identify, develop, and foster relationships with stakeholders and partners within the Mobile region.

Dr. Helmer graduated with his Doctor of Pharmacy degree (first-honor graduate) from the South Carolina College of Pharmacy in Charleston, SC in 2010. Following graduation, he completed a 24-month (PGY1/PGY2) residency in Pharmacotherapy at the University of Tennessee Medical Center and University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was also the chief pharmacy resident.

Dr. Helmer is a member of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP).

Lena McDowell is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Originally from Snowdoun, Alabama, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical sciences from Auburn University and completed her Doctor of Pharmacy at the Harrison College of Pharmacy. Upon graduation, she completed an ASHP-accredited community pharmacy post-graduate year 1 (PGY-1) residency at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy in Oxford, Mississippi. Dr. McDowell serves as HCOP’s Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) Coordinator and oversees the college’s five IPPEs: community, health and wellness, health-system, clinical, and population health. In her position, she teaches within the Practice Ready Curriculum in both the didactic and experiential settings. She serves as a preceptor for PGY-1 residents for a longitudinal experiential education rotation. Her primary areas of research and scholarship are focused on experiential education and community pharmacy practice transformation. Dr. McDowell is actively involved in several state, regional, and national pharmacy organizations, including the Alabama Pharmacy Association, Southeastern Pharmacy Experiential Education Consortium, and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Leigh Ann Ross, Pharm.D., BCPS, FASHP, FCCP, FAPhA, FNAP was announced as Dean of the Harrison College of Pharmacy on May 3, 2023, taking over the role on July 1. She is the seventh Dean in the history of HCOP.

In 2024, Dean Ross was selected as the first-ever Bell Endowed Chair in the college. The college's first endowed chair, it is named after Johnny H. Bell and Sue Tate Bell, both members of the Auburn University Class of 1970.

A renowned pharmacy educator, practitioner, researcher, and administrator, Ross came to Auburn from the University of Mississippi, where she held multiple leadership roles, including associate dean for clinical affairs, director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

A board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist, Ross has more than two decades of experience, including extensive advocacy for pharmacists in the expanding role of patient care, resulting in new pathways for pharmacists as health care leaders. With an emphasis on faculty development and advancing the college’s research portfolio, Ross will work with stakeholders across the college to develop innovative curricula designed to promote clinical knowledge, advance translational research and strengthen pharmacist competencies.

In 2017, she led the creation of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science in the School of Pharmacy’s Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and currently serves as director. As director of CCTS, Ross led the center’s efforts to foster patient-based clinical research and support collaborations designed to address healthcare issues. Comprised of three primary units, Ross oversaw the center’s pre-clinical/translational, clinical research and community/population divisions.

During its first five years, the center generated nearly $5 million in extramural funding, including two National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Award partnerships with the University of Alabama-Birmingham and the Mississippi Center for Clinical and Translational Research, a collaboration that engages multiple institutions across the State.

As an associate dean for clinical affairs, Ross provided strategic leadership to several initiatives designed to strengthen the School of Pharmacy’s educational programs, research, outreach and service programs.

In addition to establishing and leading the university’s Pharmaceutical Care Clinics from 2000 through 2006, Ross developed curricular tools and opportunities for students to advance drug therapy management for diseases such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, anticoagulation, and asthma. As a result, the clinic received the Best Practice Award from the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists in 2003.

A staunch advocate for health care education and research, Ross completed a Congressional Fellowship in the Office of then-U.S. Senator Thad Cochran from 2006 to 2008, leading her to work with the University of Mississippi and University of Mississippi Medical Center governmental affairs teams to advance Federal and State legislative, policy, and regulatory issues.

Ross is the immediate past president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the former president of the Mississippi Pharmacists Association and the Mississippi Biotechnology Association.

She previously served as a member of the ACCP Board of Regents, chair of the ACCP PAC Governing Council, chair of Pharmacotherapy Publications, Inc. Board of Directors, and chair of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Section of Teachers of Pharmacy Practice.

Ross is a fellow of the ACCP, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), American Pharmacists Association (APhA), and National Academies of Practice (NAP).

Ross holds a BBA and a PharmD degree from the University of Mississippi and completed a primary care pharmacy residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

A native of Pontotoc, Mississippi, Ross comes from a pharmacy family. Her father, Louis H. Ramsey, co-owned Ramsey-Young Pharmacy in Pontotoc, giving her an early exposure to the profession and community pharmacy. Her husband, Brendan Ross, MD, is also in the health care field as an internal medicine physician with the G.V. Sonny Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.