Sharrel Pinto

Biography

Dr. Sharrel L. Pinto is an academic executive and healthcare strategist whose work as a scholar, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur is known for building innovative programs, partnerships, and systems that improve health and expand human potential. 

As Founding Dean of Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Dr. Pinto leads a College encompassing seven health professions and thirteen academic programs. She is advancing an interdisciplinary model of health professions education rooted in collaboration, innovation, service, and whole-person care—preparing leaders not only to work within healthcare, but to transform it. 

Dr. Pinto’s commitment to service began in India, where she was raised in a Christian family shaped by farming, healthcare, education, entrepreneurship, and service to others. She began her career with Eli Lilly in Mumbai, working with a health care team who served patients across widely different socioeconomic communities. Recognizing that standardized healthcare interventions and information did not always reflect the cultural and practical realities of underserved patients helped shape her commitment to community-centered healthcare. Her journey from India to the United States—learning a new culture, making a new country home, and ultimately serving as a university leader—continues to inform her belief that education is both a blessing and a responsibility. 

Across more than two decades in higher education, Dr. Pinto has founded academic departments, research centers, fellowship programs, community-based practice models, and interdisciplinary initiatives. Before joining Belmont, she served as Founding Department Head of Allied and Population Health and Founding Director of the Community Practice Innovation Center at South Dakota State University, where she helped secure several million dollars in external funding. Earlier, at The University of Toledo, she founded the Center for Pharmaceutical Care and Outcomes Research and pioneered pharmacist-led models designed to improve medication use, patient outcomes, and healthcare value. 

Dr. Pinto’s expertise spans implementation science, population health, medication optimization, behavioral health, chronic disease prevention and management, and community-based healthcare delivery. She has authored more than 150 scholarly publications and reports, and her work has informed policy, strengthened practice, and improved patient outcomes. Throughout her career, she has worked across academic institutions, health systems, employer coalitions, community organizations, professional associations, and state and federal agencies by bringing diverse partners together to translate evidence into sustainable improvements across communities. As a strategist, consultant, and keynote speaker, she advises leaders on organizational transformation, interprofessional health education, research growth, community-centered innovation, cross-sector partnerships, and the changing future of healthcare. Known for connecting vision with action, she helps organizations identify shared priorities, build the infrastructure needed for lasting impact, and develop partnerships capable of improving health at scale. 

Central to her leadership is a commitment to developing people. She has mentored students, faculty, clinicians, researchers, and emerging leaders who now serve across academia, healthcare, government, and professional organizations. She believes leadership is measured not only by what one builds, but by the people one empowers and the communities they go on to serve. 

Dr. Pinto earned degrees from the University of Florida, The University of Toledo, the University of Bombay, and K.M. Kundanani College of Pharmacy. She is a registered pharmacist and a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association. 

Through her leadership at Belmont, Dr. Pinto is helping students from many backgrounds discover their purpose, develop the courage to lead, and prepare to advance health and human potential.