Two UF College of Dentistry first-year students stood out while representing the college at the 2022 Hinman Student Research Symposium held at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the end of October.
DMD Class of 2026 Gators Thomas Koby-Hercsky and Ariyana Shetty both presented projects at Hinman, and Koby-Hercsky walked away the winner of the Most Outstanding Clinical Research Presentation.
Mentored by UFCD Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of the Center for Dental Biomaterials Mateus Rocha, DDS, MS, PhD and Clinical Assistant Professor Dayane Oliveira, DDS, MS, PhD, Hercsky picked up the award for his presentation, Algorithm Development to Predict Degree of Conversion of Resin-based Composites.
Shetty, who presented her project, Exploring extracellular DNA and amyloid location within Streptococcus mutans biofilms, is mentored by Director of Graduate and Postdoctoral Research Training and Career Development, Professor Jeannine Brady, PhD, and Department of Oral Biology Research Associate Professor Elena Yarmola, PhD.
The student research symposium annually features oral and poster presentations of research projects by dental students and graduate trainees from dental schools across North America and Canada. At this year’s installment, 101 students represented 46 dental schools in 30 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and one Canadian province.
The Hinman Dental Society, which holds one of the nation’s largest continuing dental education meetings each March in Atlanta, collaborated with Procter & Gamble Company, the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry Alumni Association and the Tennessee Dental Association Foundation to make this year’s symposium a reality for guests and participants.
Ten awards were given for the most outstanding student presentations at the closing ceremony, five in Clinical Research and five in Basic and Translational Research, in addition to an award from the National Students Research Group of the American Association for Dental Research. Awards were presented by Dr. David Anderson, president of the Hinman Dental Society and Dr. Orpheus Triplett, Assistant Dean of Community Dentistry and Outreach at the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry.
The next Thomas P. Hinman Dental Meeting will be held March 16-18, 2023, in Atlanta.
