While in dental school, I studied hard and was always enthusiastic about the opportunity to alleviate pain and restore the patients smile. I became very passionate about the field of Prosthodontics because it closely aligns with my clinical interests, and affords me the privilege of combining my artistic, clinical, and basic science skills. The feeling I get after making a functional and esthetically pleasing prosthesis for a patient who has not smiled in years is highly gratifying. Prosthodontics taught me how to restore and replace hard and soft oral tissues and made me find ways to connect with my community. I hope to become an authority in Prosthodontics and contribute significantly to its growth and development by engaging in fascinating scientific research, performing outstanding clinical work, training the next generation of Prosthodontists, and participating in impactful service to the community.
The incredible opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research in dental school and at Harvard University allowed me to develop novel skills and methodology in study design, data analysis, and critical appraisal of scientific studies. During my masters at Har
vard School of Public Health, I researched the longitudinal association between chronic periodontitis and the risk of hypertension. I found this study to be interesting because the success of most prostheses relies heavily on having a healthy periodontium, and it is imperative to adequately reduce or eliminate periodontal inflammation for a prosthesis to be functionally acceptable. It also made me better understand the relationship between periodontal diseases and systemic illnesses. I learned a lot from independently conducting this study, including grant proposal writing, performing a comprehensive review of the literature, data management and analysis, interpretation of results, and presenting study findings to a scientific audience. Currently, I am working as a Lecturer at Princeton University and a research associate at Rutgers University. Two of my colleagues and I are writing a research protocol for a systematic review that will evaluate the attitudes of clinicians to the concept of the shortened dental arch (SDA). We expect that this review will provide better insight into the Dentists perception of the SDA, and provide guidance for further research.