University of Florida College of Dentistry fourth-year Gator Dentist Miles Turner was one of 25 UF students named in the 2024 Hall of Fame class, reserved for UF seniors and graduate/professional students who have shown superior leadership and achievement through their activities and scholarship while members of the UF community.
Turner, who earned his undergraduate degree from Ohio State University and graduates in May with his Doctor of Dental Medicine degree, will pursue an Advanced Education in General Dentistry residency at the college’s St. Petersburg Dental Center in Seminole after graduation to build on his oral health and dentistry knowledge and skills.
Turner boasts a keen interest in blending his love of sports – specifically hockey – and dentistry and has devoted his time at UFCD immersed in research after being accepted into the college’s DMD Research Track program with the ultimate goal of being an NHL team dentist. Under the mentorship of clinical assistant professor Mateus Rocha, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D., director of the Center for Dental Biomaterials, Turner’s research endeavors have resulted in a $3,000 seed grant and two rounds of funding totaling $20,000 from UF’s Warrington College of Business towards a future business idea in the works upon graduation.
His research project, “Optimization of impact stress distribution of sports mouthguards using 3D lattice structures” earned top honors in the DMD category at the college’s 2023 Spring Synergy research day, including an award that enabled him to present research at the Academy of Dental Materials Annual Meeting and the Academy for Sports Dentistry Global Symposium last year where he earned the Research and Education Award.
Turner’s hands-on work melding dentistry and hockey manifested in a clinical trial evaluating sports mouthguards during a project between UFCD’s Dental Clinical Research Unit and UF’s Sports Clubs, a relationship he hopes will continue in an effort to increase oral health safety for athletes.
The 2024 Hall of Fame Class will be recognized at a ceremony on April 19, and composites of all UF Hall of Famers are permanently displayed on the third floor of the J. Wayne Reitz Union on the University of Florida campus.