People

This page is part of our Editorial Style Guide.

On this page

• Names and titles
  • Use title case for titles appearing before a name
  • Use lowercase for titles following a name or without a name
  • In vs. of vs. for
  • Using prefixes in titles
• Degrees
• Other details
  • In most cases, do not use faculty rank titles
    • Two exceptions
  • Working titles
  • Referring to people
  • Including the department
  • Alumni
  • Alumni of UCSF SOP
  • Endowed faculty positions (chairs and professorships)
  • Students in PharmD degree program
  • Students in PhD degree programs administered by the School

Names and titles

School of Pharmacy web pages describing people are the canonical source for most information about our faculty and staff members, including names and degrees. We’ll refer to these in this guide as “person pages.” You can find person pages at:

• Faculty
• Staff

See the name list for the proper way to refer to certain names with related notes.

For UCSF people outside of the School of Pharmacy, use UCSF Profiles or the UCSF Directory.

In prose, in the first reference to a person, use the full name, including degrees, followed by additional titles.

Do say: Kathleen M. Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm, is dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy and is the Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Titles are capitalized differently when appearing before or after a person’s name. However, the name of an endowed or distinguished professorship is always capitalized. For more on professorships, see Endowed faculty positions (chairs and professorships).

Use title case for titles appearing before a name

• Chief Executive Officer Mark Laret called an all-staff meeting for July 22.
• Leading the training session was Lab Manager Sharon Castillo.

Use lowercase for titles following a name or without a name

• Shelby Decosta, financial operations director, gave a workshop presentation.
• The chief financial officer leads the nonprofit group Food for All.

In vs. of vs. for

1. Use vice chair of and not vice chair in or vice chair for.
2. Use associate dean of and not associate dean in or associate dean for. Exception: in the context of pharmacy practice partnerships (as on the School orgchart or in Administration History), use associate dean at or associate dean followed by a comma then the location.
3. in is usually used in reference to positions.
4. of is usually used in reference to the recipient, holder, or person.
5. for is used in the names of some endowed positions and usually not elsewhere.

Example:

Do not say: She is the associate dean for research.

Do say: She is the associate dean of research.

Using prefixes in titles

Do not use a hyphen except when referring to co-vice deans or co-organizers. We follow Chicago 7.89.4 (Words formed with prefixes) (requires account).

Do not say: Co-director Su Guo, PhD.

Do say: Codirector Su Guo, PhD.

Do say: Su Guo, PhD, codirector of the program, provided the introduction.

Do say: coadministrator, coauthor, cochair, codirector, cofounder, coleader, copresident. But, do say: co-organizer.

Do not say: The team will be led by Co-vice Dean Ryan Hernandez, PhD.

Do say: The team will be led by Co-Vice Dean Ryan Hernandez, PhD.

Do say: The team will be led by Ryan Hernandez, PhD. Hernandez is a co-vice dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Degrees

On first mention in prose, include the person’s degrees. Do not include degrees in story headlines, subheads, or alt tags.

Do not include bachelor’s degrees (e.g., BA or BS) in degree abbreviations listed immediately following a name. This is an extension of guidance found in the UCSF Editorial Style Guide provided by the UCSF Office of Communications: “List only the top three master’s degrees, doctorate degrees or fellowships in editorial copy.” Although this specifies editorial copy, it would be incongruent and confusing to follow this rule for editorial copy and a different rule for non-editorial copy, so we follow it for non-editorial copy as well. Faculty and staff members are welcome to include a listing of their bachelor’s degree on their person profile page in the Degrees section. Rarely our editorial team in the Office of Communications will make an exception to this guidance.

Do not include specialties, certifications, or licenses in editorial copy; use these only for a detailed bio or CV, or if the story’s topic is specifically related to the special designation. Examples of things to omit in most name mentions:

• Board specialties such as BCPS (Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist)
• Fellow designations, such as FAPhA (Fellow, American Pharmacists Association) or FCCP (Fellow, American College of Clinical Pharmacy)
• Licensure and certifications such as CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator)

For example, this is too much: Richard S. Talbot, PharmD, FCCP, FASHP, AAHIVP, FAPhA. A string of letters like this wouldn’t add anything to a story. Instead, the information could be supplied in a paragraph or a list of honors.

Other details

The guidelines in this section are specific to SOP Style and differ from UCSF Style in several ways. Some of the incorrect examples show how UCSF news stories might present the sample text.

In most cases, do not use faculty rank titles

In news and features, and other descriptive stories, do not use faculty rank titles at all (such as professor, associate professor, etc.). Instead, use “faculty member.”

Do say: Eric Brown, PharmD, PhD, a faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, was selected for three teaching awards in 2018.

Do not say: Eric Brown, PharmD, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, was selected for three teaching awards in 2018.

Two exceptions

Two exceptions to this guideline are described below.

1. Use the faculty rank on a person page, business card, or email signature

   On a person page, the faculty rank is included in the faculty member’s working title. This format would also be used for a business card or email signature.

   Do say:	Do not say:
   Susan Smith, PharmD Associate Professor Department of Clinical Pharmacy	Susan Smith, PharmD ASSOC PROF HCOMP Department of Clinical Pharmacy

2. Use the faculty rank in a news item about receiving tenure (department news only)

   If the purpose is primarily to recognize that a faculty member has received tenure, the story would refer to their promotion to a new faculty rank. (These announcements are reserved for department news syndication only.)

   Do say for department news syndication:

   LaDonna Washington, PhD, has received tenure and advanced to the position of professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.

Working titles

On faculty person pages we simplify what can be long and complicated official faculty series titles into working titles. Working titles for faculty members are determined by a protocol developed by the School of Pharmacy’s Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of Communications. Details: How to Specify Titles and Admin Roles.

Referring to people

Generally, and particularly in prose, upon first reference to a person, use the full name and degrees (no periods with degrees). Upon second and subsequent references, use last name only; do not use Dr. or Professor or Mr. or Mrs. or Ms.

Generally, social titles like Dr. or Professor or Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. may be used only in a direct quote of someone speaking or where social titles occur in names of things (e.g., named, donated gifts).

Do not say for first and any subsequent reference:

Before coming to UCSF, Professor Jessam received her PharmD from the University of Michigan.

Do say for second and subsequent references:

Before coming to UCSF, Jessam received her PharmD from the University of Michigan.

Including the department

Use wording such as the examples below for identifying faculty members’ associations with departments. Always refer to the department, not to UCSF alone. Also refer to the School of Pharmacy if the context requires it.

Do say: James Shu, PhD, has been named a recipient of the National Science Award. Shu, a faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, will use the funding to…

Do not say: James Shu, PhD, has been named a recipient of the National Science Award. Shu, a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, will use the funding to…

The incorrect example above leaves out the School and the department; in addition, “professor of pharmaceutical chemistry” is not an actual title in the School of Pharmacy.

Alumni

• For male graduates, use alumnus (singular) and alumni (plural).
• For female graduates, use alumna (singular) and alumnae (plural).
• For male and female graduates together, use alumni.
• You may also use alum in informal settings.

Alumni of UCSF SOP

Include the year the degree was earned only when it’s relevant to the story.

Do say: Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD ’69, spoke at Alumni Weekend. (The story is related to alumni, so including the degree year is relevant.)

Do say: Koda-Kimble is a member of the PharmD Class of 1969.

Do not say: Jennifer Cocohoba, PharmD ’01, published the study in the March 2017 issue of PLOS. (The class year is not relevant in this context.)

Endowed faculty positions (chairs and professorships)

Overview

When referring to the position, use “professorship in”: Kathleen M. Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm, holds the Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professorship in Pharmaceutical Sciences.

When referring to the recipient, holder, person, or professor, use “professor of”: Kathleen M. Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm, is the Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Signature block example:

Do say:	Do not say:
Kathleen M. Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm Dean Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences UCSF School of Pharmacy	Kathleen M. Giacomini, PhD, BSPharm Dean Troy C. Daniels Distinguished Professorship in Pharmaceutical Sciences UCSF School of Pharmacy

More details: Referring to Endowed Faculty Positions.

Students in PharmD degree program

In order to reinforce to audiences the doctoral level of education held by pharmacists, on first mention in prose do refer to students using the full descriptor of their degree program with acronym. Subsequent references can be shortened.

Do not use “student pharmacists.”

Rationale: The School has previously insisted upon this phrase as a way of helping students in practice roles feel more valued, but we later decided against it because it is not actually accurate. It implies a practicing pharmacist who is a student. Our PharmD students are not yet licensed pharmacists. Also, one would not use the terms student physician or student dentist.

Do not capitalize “doctor of pharmacy,” unless the word “doctor” begins a sentence.

Do use this upon first citation: doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students

Do use this upon second citation: PharmD students; pharmacy students; students

Example: UCSF’s doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students took first place at the 2020 Annual National Student Pharmacist Pharmacy & Therapeutics Competition during which students from 68 other pharmacy degree programs vied for the honor.

Students in PhD degree programs administered by the School

The UCSF Graduate Division offers numerous PhD degrees. Five of those degree programs are administered by the School of Pharmacy in the fields of: bioengineering, biological and medical informatics (bioinformatics pathway), biophysics, chemistry and chemical biology, pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacogenomics.

For clarity, in prose, do refer to these students as PhD students and not as graduate students.

Rationale: While “graduate students” is understood by internal UCSF audiences to include master’s degree and PhD degree students in the Graduate Division and not students in the PharmD, MD, DDS, DNS doctoral degree programs, it is not clear to external audiences.

Example: Jamal Henderson is a PhD student at UCSF studying the structure of bacterial transporters. He hopes to graduate next year from the PhD degree program in chemistry and chemical biology (CCB), along with 10 fellow CCB students.

Next topic: The University, the School, and Other Entities