27 December 2024

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Faculty member Dr. Margherita Fontana elected vice-president of the American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research

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University of Michigan School of Dentistry faculty member Dr. Margherita Fontana has been elected vice-president of the American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research. The one-year term begins after the organization’s next national conference in March 2025 and leads to the presidency of the national organization in two years.

The membership of AADOCR elected Dr. Fontana, who is the Clifford Nelson Endowed Professor of Dentistry in the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics. With more than 3,000 members across the country, AADOCR it is the largest division of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR).

Fontana’s term as vice-president begins at the conclusion of the 54th annual meeting of the AADOCR from March 12-14, 2025, in New York. After serving as vice-president for a year beginning in March, Fontana will remain on the AADOCR Board of Directors for three consecutive annual terms as president-elect, president and immediate past president.

This is the third time in the last six years that a U-M dental school faculty member has been elected vice-president of AADOCR for succession to president of the organization. Dr. Jacques Nör, Dean of the School of Dentistry, served as vice-president from 2019-20, then as president from 2021-22. Dr. Nisha D’Silva, the Donald A. Kerr Endowed Collegiate Professor of Oral Pathology in the dental school’s Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine, is serving as vice-president for 2024-25 and will be president in 2026-27.

Fontana joined the U-M School of Dentistry in 2009 as an associate professor, with tenure, and was promoted to professor in 2014. She is recognized internationally as a leading scientist in the field of cariology and has an extensive clinical research background in childhood caries management. She has published research and lectured extensively on the design and assessment of strategies for reducing disparities in how dental caries are recognized and treated in children in underserved regions. She is currently president of the Organization for Caries Research (ORCA), an international scientific organization based in Europe that publishes epidemiological, clinical and laboratory studies about dental caries, fluorosis, erosion, and related dental diseases in its journal Caries Research.

Fontana is the principal investigator (PI) on two National Institutes of Health grants totaling $18.3 million, and is the PI or co-PI on nine corporate grants. She has authored more than 147 peer-reviewed publications and 11 book chapters, and has been invited to speak at more than 260 national and international conferences. She also has served as a member of key state advisory committees on fluoridation, sealants and oral health.

Among numerous awards for her research and mentoring, Fontana has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Office of the U.S. President (2012); the Basil G. Bibby Award in Cariology from the IADR Cariology Research Group (1999); the E.W. Borrows Memorial Award from the IADR (2016); the Michigan Institute of Clinical and Health Research Mentor Award (2018); and the U-M Faculty Recognition Award (2017), given in recognition of a mid-career faculty member who has made exceptional contributions to research, teaching and service.

Leadership positions Fontana has held include chair of the IADR Young Investigator Award Committee, the AADOCR Annual Session Committee, the IADR Innovation in Oral Care Award Committee, the IADR E.W. Borrow Memorial Award Committee, and the IADR Science Information Committee. She was selected as a 2017 AADOCR Fellow and served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Dental Research from 2017 to 2020.

Source: https://news.dent.umich.edu/