{"id":242241,"date":"2026-03-11T11:13:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=242241"},"modified":"2026-03-11T13:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:53:13","slug":"kyle-hadden-to-become-uconn-school-of-pharmacy-department-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/03\/kyle-hadden-to-become-uconn-school-of-pharmacy-department-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Hadden To Become UConn School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department Head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Hadden has been working at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences since 2009 where he started as an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry.<\/p>\n

He said that his decision to go into academia was made during his postdoctoral research at the University of Kansas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was postdoc, I actually wanted to go into industry and me and my research mentor Brian Blagg had a talk about specific jobs that were available and where I could apply and think about,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cI applied to a few places and wasn\u2019t getting traction with those positions so Blagg sat me down and said that he thought I would do well in academics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadden said that Blagg gave him a revelation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlagg said that if I did industry, I would be researching what other people wanted me to research, but if I did academia, I could research what I wanted to research,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cHe told me that he didn\u2019t see me as someone that would be happy long-term doing what someone else wanted me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Hadden decided to look into academia and stumbled upon the University of Connecticut.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the right place at the right time,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cWhen I was looking for a position, it was one of the few that had open positions in the field I was primarily in.<\/p>\n

Hadden continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the places was less of a university and more of a research institute and I enjoyed working with students so I went with UConn,\u201d Hadden said.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Kyle Hadden on Aug. 12, 2021. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hadden started out coordinating PHRX 3002, Foundations in Bioorganic Chemistry. He then coordinated other classes such as PHAR 5393, Seminar in Medicinal Chemistry (2010-2022), PHRX 3012, Pharmacy Research Seminar (2011-2013) and PHRX 2009, Principles of Drug Action (2016-2017).<\/p>\n

Hadden\u2019s favorite part about teaching is seeing a student understand the topic they struggled with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy talking to the students that might have struggled a bit and then come and see me in the office and we talk through the topics again and you can see in their face that they understand it,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cSo that always gives me joy when I can see that they\u2019ve understood a little bit more and it\u2019s starting to connect.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, Hadden got promoted to an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and in 2021 he was promoted again to a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and added a new role, the Director of Research and Graduate Programs as well.<\/p>\n

Hadden reflected on his previous promotions, saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been blessed that it\u2019s been pretty smooth process with minimal bumps along the way,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cI got into research at UConn at a good time and when there was still a lot of funding available for different projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research has been Hadden\u2019s biggest role in his career as he has published 64 peer-reviewed research articles since 2003, as well as 18 peer-reviewed review articles published since 2006.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his career so far at UConn, Hadden has mentored 40 different students through his research lab.<\/p>\n

Hadden\u2019s favorite thing about research is when a student comes into his lab and they complete an experiment that they designed and then they come to tell him about their findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell from their face that they\u2019re incredibly excited about having been able to think that process of what do I need to know,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cThat\u2019s my favorite part of it is watching them feel success for themselves when they\u2019ve made that connection in the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadden\u2019s proudest project was his work on the molecule itraconazole. Itraconazole is a clinically used, FDA approved antifungal medication that has a specific nitrogen atom that makes it potentially toxic to humans and can result in drug-drug interactions. Hadden\u2019s research was trying to turn that molecule into an anti-cancer medication by removing the nitrogen atom.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his research, he was successful and found a way to eliminate some of the bad side effects along the way.<\/p>\n

Hadden has still had his fair share of setbacks. The biggest being when he was diagnosed with colon cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think you\u2019re a young healthy person that eats well and exercises to then have something like that thrown at you, it takes a bit of time to digest and get through,\u201d Hadden said.<\/p>\n

He ended up getting the tumor removed through surgery and celebrated his five-year date of being cancer free earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Some of the ongoing initiatives Hadden is excited to take over is trying to figure out ways to educate more undergraduate students at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a variety of different ways we have talked about in the department and there\u2019s a variety of different strategies that we need to sort out to decide what the best way is,\u201d Hadden said.<\/p>\n

Hadden also said that another thing he is excited about working on is figuring out ways to develop more classes and have more of the faculty\u2019s expertise be available to undergraduate students.<\/p>\n

Hadden will be promoted to department head in August 2026 and his message to incoming and current pharmacy students is to never forget that the faculty are here to help you succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo often the students think they\u2019re going to bother the faculty or that they\u2019re going to be a nuisance if they come to office hours,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cI would tell them they\u2019re not, we are faulty members because we love working with and teaching students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadden added to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever feel like you are going to be bothering a faculty member if you have a question,\u201d Hadden said. \u201cWe are here to help you succeed and that\u2019s one of the things we love about the job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of Research and Graduate Programs, Kyle Hadden, will be promoted to Pharmaceutical Sciences Department Head in August 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":242245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2715],"class_list":["post-242241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pharm"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 05:36:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242259,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242241\/revisions\/242259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/242245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242241"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=242241"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=242241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}