Faculty News

From left to right: Ned Beatty, Director Ken Fink, Marg Helgenberger, Liev Schreiber, and Dr. Ron Mito on the Universal City set of "CSI: Las Vegas"

Dr. Tara Aghaloo (left) confers with her laboratory colleagues

Dr. Maggiore and dental students

Dr. Maggiore lent his time to the Mobile Clinic

Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein, director of the UCLA Dental Center and adjunct assistant professor, was quoted January 8, 2007 in the Los Angeles Business Journal on the subject of dental marketing strategies and practice management.

Dr. Carl Maida, adjunct professor of public health and community dentsitry is also the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Pacific Division, and has co-organized the symposium, “Ecologies of Danger and Cultures of Resilience: Children in Extreme Situations,” for the AAAS National Meeting in San Francisco in February, with colleagues from the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress at the Geffen School of Medicine. The program, which is co-sponsored by the Pacific Division, will be held on Saturday, February 17, starting at 8:00 a.m. at the Hilton San Francisco. For those who are considering attending, here is the session description from the AAAS Meeting Program:

"It seems that in the last few years television and computer screens have been filled with graphic images of death, contorted bodies, and people, especially children, suffering. From the reporting of terrorist bombings in New York, Madrid, and London to the recent flooding in New Orleans, catastrophes in the United States and in distant places such as Beslan, Russia and South Asia have become immediate and personal. Even as these events numb adult minds, they have left children insecure and frightened. This session focuses on understanding the variety of domains that impact child development and uses this framework to describe the effects of ecological danger and trauma on children. It also examines the factors that promote child resilience and well-being. Developmental and ecological dimensions of danger will be discussed. They include aspects of the physical ecology that lend themselves to a social ecology of danger; ethological data on the impact of danger in the ecology of groups on mother/infant interactions; effect of the ecology of danger on child and adolescent development and on parent and child interactions; the ways major catastrophic events affect children's schematization of the world, self, and others; disturbances in moral development and conscience functioning; post-catastrophe ecological factors that promote resilience and recovery of children and families; and cultural pathways and community settings that mitigate the impact of dangerous events and promote resilience."


Dr. Philip Trask and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Dr. Philip Trask, a member of the faculty of Pediatric Dentistry, has made an impact on government policy. " I was very pleased to meet Governor Schwarzenegger, and happily thanked him on behalf of California's Pediatric Dentists for signing into law the requirement of a dental assessment to enter kindergarden or first grade," said Dr. Trask. He went on to note that, "Many gains had been made throughout the years and Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first governor to sign the legislation making it now a statewide law."

For the past 39 years Dr. Trask has been a consistent supporter of organized dentistry, twice as president of the Southern California Society of Dentistry for Children, as a charter member of the California Society of Pediatric Dentists, and as a member of the California Dental Association. "These organizations have been dedicated in promoting the benefits of good dental health for children and the need for a dental evaluation, like other public health measures, upon entering school," Dr. Trask explained.

"For well over 20 years I served as the volunteer dental director for Santa Monica - Malibu School District where we conducted dental exams on school children. Many needed urgent care and suffered dental pain in the classroom. Others had dental disease and neither the kids nor their parents were aware of it. We worked with the school nurses who made referrals to dental offices and clinics and followed up to be sure the kids got treated.

"When the Head Start program began we would go their various locations to perform dental screenings and prevention education for the toddlers and parents. Same for some low income area public and parochial grammar schools. A majority of California's children never had this advantage. The California Dental Association and the California Society of Pediatric Dentists have worked hard for many years to get this vital dental assessment school requirement passed as a state law. The real credit goes to these organizations and their dedicated leaders. I am just one of the soldiers in the field."

Dr. David T. Wong, professor & associate dean of research and director of the Dental Research Institute was selected to be named an Honorary Member of the American Association of Oral Medicine (AAOM) for his outstanding contribution to the art and science of oral medicine. He will be honored at the upcoming AAOM annual meeting on April 20, 2007 in San Diego where he will be giving a talk as well.

Also, Dr. David Wong spoke to Science Today the week of January 22, 2007 about the minimally invasive test for oral cancer developed in his laboratory and its potential to save thousands of lives. Listen to an audio clip from that interview, “Researchers Develop a Saliva Test for Early Detection of Oral Cancer,” online at:
http://www.ucop.edu/sciencetoday.