Corinne Kunkle Represents GSDM at the Colgate Dental Students’ Conference on Research

Corinne Kunkle DMD 18 recently represented Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) at the 52nd Annual Colgate Dental Students’ Conference on Research (Colgate DSCR). This year’s conference was held at the ADA Foundation Dr. Anthony Volpe Research Center (VRC) in Gaithersburg, Maryland from October 2 – 4, 2016.

The Colgate DSCR is an annual event to introduce dental students to industry and academic professionals as well as scientists from the VRC, the American Dental Association, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) to raise their awareness of the wide-ranging careers available in oral health research. Students attend guest lectures from leading scientists, tour top research centers, and participate in poster presentations and discussions.

The first night of the conference was a dinner and meet and greet for all students. Many students also opted to present posters of their research, and throughout the evening students could discuss and learn about each other’s work. Of the many guest lectures and presentations, Kunkle made particular note of the volume of projects and research being done on Sjogren’s Syndrome, which she found very interesting.

On the second day of the conference, Kunkle and the other students visited the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where they toured its facilities, laboratories, and  state-of-the-art equipment, such as the electron microscope. Other tours were offered at NIH and NIDCR.

Kunkle’s research, titled, “30 second elevator pitch for the pediatric dental population” was completed as a part of IREC 2, a research program as GSDM. Her research mentor was Arif Mamdani and was supervised by Dr. Athanasios Zavras, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry. The survey-based study looked at the 30-second timeframe from when a pediatric patient is met in the waiting room to the time they are seated in the dental chair. The study looked at all the intricacies of that exchange; first impressions, interacting with parents, what to call the child, and more, in an effort to pin-point what the guardians care about in their child’s experience.

“All of the individuals at the event were of a very high caliber, and I was honored to be there,” said Kunkle.

“We are extremely proud of Corinne Kunkle and her dedication to both research and her career in dentistry and I know she did an excellent job of representing GSDM at the Conference on Research,” said Dean Jeffrey W. Hutter.