Coming from anthropology, how was the transition into dental research?
The transition was marked by whirlwinds of differences between the students and research circulating around me. With respect to the students, for the first time I was teaching and mentoring in my field of expertise, hard tissue biology. The students had a special affinity for and were interested in bone and tooth biology relevant to dentistry; this is not something I had taught before. At NYUCD they are always asking questions and want to know more about how I apply hard tissue biology to various research problems. It’s the same with the research, except that while I continue to do all that I had done previously in my anthropology career, I was now exposed to research problems and interests that I never would have anticipated before. For instance, I participate in implant dentistry, orthodontic and dental disease research, for which I have skills to perform but was not previously exposed to. The transition has meant broadening my horizon into a dental research career which I simply wou
