DH Student Profile: Professional roles, awards grow for Mona Riaz
The journey of Maimoonah (Mona) Riaz through dental hygiene and education is off to a strong start and will continue at the School of Dentistry. She will remain at the school to teach and perform research after receiving her Master of Science in Dental Hygiene degree this spring.
Mona Riaz
Riaz has had a good year as she came down to finishing her master’s degree and thesis on “Recruitment of Parent/Child Pairs in a Randomized Clinical Trial for Silver Diamine Flouride” The thesis is related to her work with a team led by Dr. Margherita Fontana that is conducting two large-scale, long-term studies funded with $18.3 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health. One is testing the effectiveness of Silver Diamine Fluoride (SDF) in arresting caries in children ages 2-5; the other expands research into predicting caries risk in young children.
In addition to working on her master’s and research projects, Riaz has contributed as an adjunct clinical lecturer. Mixed in with those duties has been the good news of receiving three scholarship awards in rapid succession in recent months:
- The Christine P. Klausner Graduate Dental Hygiene Student Scholarship. The dental hygiene program awards the scholarship for commitment to leadership in dental hygiene education, service and research. The award is in memory of Klausner who taught in the DH program for 13 years until her death in 2010. Riaz, who was coincidentally an undergraduate in Klausner’s last class, is the seventh recipient of the award.
- The Rackham Graduate School Jean Forrest Award. The intent of the award is to help students pay interest charges accruing on educational loans while a student is in graduate school. The award’s namesake earned her master’s degree from Rackham in 1976 and, in gratitude for her education, established an endowed fund to support graduate students with financial need.
- The 2020 ADEA/Crest Oral-B Scholarships for Dental Hygiene Students Pursuing Academic Careers. The scholarship supports dental hygiene students who are pursuing education beyond an associate degree and who show a commitment to pursuing an academic career in dental hygiene. It includes $2,000 toward tuition as well as a stipend for travel to the Procter & Gamble Research Center in Mason, Ohio.
Riaz’s professional career began when she became a Registered Dental Assistant in 2008. Shortly after completing a certification program in Dental Assisting from Washtenaw Community College, her interest in higher education led her to enroll at the School of Dentistry, where she graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Dental Hygiene. In the time since, she has worked in a variety of settings, beginning as a clinical examiner for the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research. Much of her experience has been in community-based programs. She was coordinator for a school-based dental sealant program in Wayne County and was a school-based examiner for “Smiles on Wheels,” a mobile service providing oral healthcare.
Mona Riaz explains information on her poster during the dental school’s 2020 Research Day in February.
Riaz’s teaching career began in 2014 as an adjunct clinical faculty for the dental school DH program, working with senior DH students during their outreach to the Western Wayne Family Health Center. From 2016 to 2018, she practiced clinical care at the dental school’s Community Dental Center in downtown Ann Arbor and worked with DH students during their rotations there. She returned to the dental school in 2018 as a clinical research coordinator in the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics while lecturing in the DH program.
Riaz said her passion and commitment to becoming an educator in dental hygiene has grown in recent years as she experienced research, academia, public health and clinical practice. Her continued focus on research and teaching in clinical and preclinical settings has led to the realization about the rewards of her career thus far. “Through this experience, the biggest lesson I have learned is that there is no greater reward than giving oneself to help others and seeing the positive impact it has on their lives,” she said. “My teaching position has taught me how important it is for DH educators to model leadership qualities to their students. This helps educators inspire their students and provides them with the tools needed to seek out and assume leadership positions.”
Those tools include being an effective communicator, building a relationship of trust and respect, and having the ability to self-reflect regularly. “Being an educator in DH is an honor because I am helping shape the future of my profession,” Riaz said. “My passion for teaching helps me motivate my learners to actively engage in their learning process. My overall professional goals are to teach didactic courses in DH, along with clinical courses, to help my students build links between theory and practice.”
