The College of Dentistry’s new department chair in Preventive and Community Dentistry Leo Marchini grew up in Brazil with a father as a dentist, so it would make sense that Marchini would end up in the profession himself, even though he didn’t want to at first.

The National Institutes of Health via the University of Kentucky awarded Azeez Butali and Erliang Zeng a grant to identify genome-wide genetic susceptibility variants around the world.

Iowa Dentistry and the His Hands Clinic in Cedar Rapids, under dental director Jeff Akey ('87 DDS) began a new partnership this year offering clinical outreach experiences for second-, third-, and fourth-year dental students on select Saturday mornings.

The University of Iowa was one of four research institutions, along with Michigan, Duke, and Indiana, collaborating on a newly-funded National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)/ National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant investigating the causes and implications of adolescent tooth decay, especially among underserved populations.

A team of University of Iowa oral health researchers and dental providers at the Community Health Centers of Southeastern Iowa teamed up to deliver and assess the effectiveness of teledentistry in a nursing home setting.

On a recent trip to rural Mexico, Iowa dental students and faculty provide dental care to children in schools and orphanages in the area.

A large contingent of Iowa Dentistry faculty, students, and alumni attended and presented at the 2023 National Oral Health Conference April 17-19 in Orlando, FL.

When Howard Cowen (’76 DDS, ’95 MS) joined the University of Iowa College of Dentistry faculty in 1982, he served as the Director of the Geriatric Mobile Dental Unit, which provided care to elderly patients across the state starting in 1979. Throughout his career, Cowen has focused on making sure that underserved populations receive the highest quality dental care, and has helped to shape the educational offerings to dental students in the field of underserved populations.

We were saddened learn of the death of one of our program alumni, Dr. Rahul Nair (MS, 2008) who died in an automobile accident on November 4, 2022. 

The term “seven-year itch” is a belief that after a certain amount of time – usually about 7 years – there is a psychological need to change or do something new.  After nearly seven years of not producing a Dental Public Health Alumni Newsletter, there is now a definite ‘itch’ to once again send out an annual newsletter.  So, for the first time since 2015, we have a DPH Alumni Newsletter for your reading enjoyment.