Faculty Notes

Dr. James McNamara will be honored by the American Association of Orthodontics at the organization’s annual meeting next April. He will receive the organization’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

McNamara is the Thomas M. and Doris Graber Endowed Professor Emeritus in the Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry. He also is professor emeritus at the U-M Medical School; research professor emeritus in the Center for Human Growth and Development, an interdisciplinary research unit at U-M; and curator of the Michigan Growth Study. He continues to teach at the dental school and still practices with his daughter, Dr. Laurie McClatchey, in Ann Arbor.

Long considered an innovator in orthodontic diagnosis and treatment, McNamara’s research has focused on the clinical modification of the growth of the face and jaws. He has lectured and taught across the U.S. and in more than 40 countries. He has authored more than 300 publications, and has written, edited or contributed to more than 75 books on orthodontics and craniofacial biology, including the widely-used textbook, “Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics.” He has received numerous awards and honors, including, in 2008, the Albert H. Ketcham Memorial Award, the highest award given by the American Board of Orthodontics and generally considered the most prestigious award in orthodontics worldwide.

Dr. Chris Roberts, an adjunct faculty member in the Orthodontics Department and current president of the AAO Board of Trustees, announced the upcoming award to the department in May. Roberts’ leadership position in the organization will allow him the privilege of presenting the award to his colleague of the last 30 years at the national conference in Boston April 23-27, 2021.

James McNamara

The committee planning the 2022 annual conference of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) will be chaired by Danielle Rulli, a faculty member in the School of Dentistry Dental Hygiene program.

Rulli was recently named chair-elect of the ADEA’s Annual Session Program Committee. Due to the extensive programming content at each conference, committees initiate work two years prior to the conference date. Rulli will chair the group that coordinates planning and defines content for the spring 2022 conference in Montreal, Canada.

Members of ADEA include all 78 U.S. and Canadian dental schools, more than 800 allied and advanced dental education programs, 50 corporations and about 18,000 individuals.

The Annual Session Program Committee adjudicates all the proposals for presentations, research posters and corporate participation for the entire conference. This requires the oversight and coordination of ADEA’s seven councils that compose the planning committee. Rulli will work closely in developing the conference with Dr. Keith Mays, chair-elect of the ADEA Board of Directors and Interim Dean of the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry.

A member of ADEA for many years, Rulli started to take on leadership roles about four years ago on a special interest group for graduate dental hygiene programs. “It’s very exciting,” Rulli says of the conference-planning appointment. “I have a lot of passion for ADEA and appreciate the value of the organization. The annual conference is the meeting people go to network, recharge and advance as professionals, and I’m honored to be a part of shaping the conference for 2022.”

Rulli received her bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science from Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colo., followed by undergraduate dental hygiene studies at the University of Vermont in 2004. She received a master of science in Dental Hygiene Education from the University of North Carolina and Doctor of Health Science degree from Nova Southeastern University.

The 2021 ADEA annual conference will take place in Boston next March 13-16. More information can be found on the ADEA website.

Danielle Rulli

The Special Care Dentistry Association (SCDA) has presented its 2020 annual Harold Berk Award to Dr. Stephanie Munz, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Hospital Dentistry. SCDA is an international organization of oral health professionals and other individuals who are dedicated to promoting oral health and well-being for people with special needs.

Dr. Munz was nominated because of her work with special needs patients and teaching in this area. She is the Dr. Walter H. Swartz Professor of Integrated Special Care Dentistry at the dental school and is associate chair of Hospital Dentistry and director of its General Practice Residency Program. As the school’s Swartz Professor, Munz leads an educational and clinical program that prepares dental and dental hygiene students for collaborative practice and treatment protocols for patients with special needs. The new, transformative approach to developing care programs for those with special needs is one of the first of its kind at a major dental school and builds on comprehensive approaches to multidisciplinary care pioneered at the school. The initiative focuses on improving access to dental care for patients with physical, developmental, mental, sensory, behavioral, cognitive or emotional disabilities.

The Berk Award, one of several presented annually by SCDA, recognizes exemplary leadership and contribution to the advancement of oral healthcare for persons with disabilities. Harold Berk helped establish what was originally the Academy of Dentistry for Persons with Disabilities, one of three organizations that merged in 2013 into three new councils forming SCDA – the Council of Hospital Dentistry, the Council of Dentistry for People with Disabilities, and the Council of Geriatric Dentistry. SCDA membership includes dentists, dental hygienists and assistants, non-dental healthcare providers, health program administrators, residents, students and hospitals.

Munz is vice president-elect of the organization.

Stephanie Munz

Dr. Hom-Lay Wang, Collegiate Professor of Periodontics and Professor of Dentistry in the Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine, received the Master Clinician Award from the American Academy of Periodontology Foundation at its 105th annual meeting last fall in Chicago.

Dr. Wang, also director of the periodontics graduate program, was cited for demonstrating consistent clinical excellence in periodontics and for unselfishly sharing that expertise with members of the profession in many ways, including continuing education presentations at local, regional and national periodontal meetings. Sponsored by Hu-Friedy, the recipient of the Master Clinician Award must have been active in the field of periodontology for not less than 25 years.

Wang has co-edited one textbook, published more than 30 book chapters or invited reviews, and written more than 500 scientific articles. He has served in leadership positions in numerous professional organizations and has edited or been on the boards of many professional journals, both national and international. He has been honored with fellowships and many types of awards associated with education, research and service.

Hom-Lay Wang

Dr. Lucia Cevidanes was invited to make a presentation on Data Science at a meeting of the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council (NADCRC) on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., in January.

Dr. Cevidanes is the Drs. Thomas M. and Doris Graber Endowed Professor of Dentistry and Associate Professor of Dentistry in the Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry. Her presentation to the council was entitled, “Data Science for Temporomandibular Joint Osteoarthritis: Integrating Risk Predictors.”

Cevidanes was one of several speakers invited by Emir Khatipov, Director of the Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Data Sciences Program at NIDCR. Cevidanes’ research interests include 3-D imaging and data science to solve clinical problems in dentistry, with particular interest in health and disease of the temporomandibular joints, or TMJ. She studies biomarkers of arthritis and treatment approaches, treatment outcomes of aligner therapy, and orthopedic and surgical treatment for complex craniofacial anomalies and dentofacial deformities.

During her presentation, Cevidanes noted the importance of TMJ research because an estimated 10 million Americans suffer from related disorders, including discomfort or pain in the muscles that control jaw function; displaced disc, dislocated jaw or injury to the condyle; and degenerative or inflammatory joint disorders, such as arthritis. Cevidanes discussed how advances in imaging are helping to more precisely classify, prevent and treat TMJ arthritis. An important advancement for researchers is gathering enhanced imaging and massive amounts of other data so that it can be more readily accessed and interpreted. For that purpose, her lab at the dental school has created a web-based data management system called Dental and Craniofacial Bionetwork for Image Analysis, or DCBIA, that allows for improved data capture, processing and analysis.

A video of Cevidanes’ presentation is available on the NIH website. Her presentation starts near the end of the meeting video, at the 3-hour and 15-minute mark.

Among those attending the January meeting was another School of Dentistry faculty member, Dr. Nisha D’Silva, who is a member of the NADCRC. D’Silva is the Donald A. Kerr Endowed Collegiate Professor of Oral Pathology and associate chair of the Division of Oral Pathology, Medicine, Radiology. She is also Professor of Pathology at the Michigan Medical School and a member of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Lucia Cevidanes

Faculty member Dr. Hera Kim-Berman was one of the orthodontics experts interviewed by CBC Marketplace, an investigative television program for consumers that reported on SmileDirectClub in March.

Reporters for the program, part of Canada’s publicly owned television network, conducted a hidden camera investigation that showed consumers could be receiving misleading and potentially harmful information about the benefits and outcome of ordering plastic teeth aligners by mail without in-person consulting by orthodontists.

A CBC crew interviewed Kim-Berman at the dental school for her views on the trend toward consumers ordering plastic aligners from companies like the U.S.-based SmileDirectClub. The report showed people having their teeth digitally scanned in shops in the greater Toronto area, then receiving a series of plastic aligners by mail over a period of months. Instead of in-person examinations over the course of the treatment, the consumer’s teeth are monitored periodically after they send photos to SmileDirectClub’s dentists. The company promotes that consumers can improve their smiles for about half of what traditional orthodontic treatment would cost.

Kim-Berman said the unique structure of each person’s mouth and dentition receives a more thorough analysis when examined by an orthodontist. She provided input on the various dental problems of cases highlighted in the program, often disputing that the aligners-by-mail were a viable solution. She told the program there will continue to be issues with treatments by direct-to-consumer companies offering teeth-straightening services. “I think that we have a lot more cases that are going to be problematic in your future, and a lot more complaints from patients, and maybe a lot of things that orthodontists and dentists must correct and redo,” she said during the report.

The CBC Marketplace video

A related online print version

Hera Kim-Berman