Events

This meeting featured two Works-In-Progress research presentations by two DMD students. Sophia Blumenfeld presented her work-in-progress on PFAS in drinking water and its potential association with oral cancer, exploring social vulnerability and environmental exposure patterns. Jessica Caesar, in a work-in-progress that Dr. Daniel W. McNeil was also involved in, presented research on wait times in pediatric dental practices and their impact on child behavior in children ages six and under.

A celebratory practice presentation session for two Summer Research Program students, Lena Huynh (left) and Khushabu Patel (right). Lena presented a retrospective chart review examining clinical and radiographic treatment outcomes in young patients with findings consistent with CMIP (formerly known as localized aggressive periodontitis or juvenile periodontitis). Khushabu presented her summer research project examining whether dental fear and anxiety is a multidimensional construct, using two validated instruments – the Dental Fear Survey (DFS) and the Index of Dental Anxiety and Fear (IDAF/DFS).

William (Bill) Duncan, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Science at UFCD. In February he presented a general overview of ontologies; covering what they are, how they are used in biology, medicine and the dental domain.

Dr. Protiva Rahman, Research Assistant Professor in Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, presented ongoing work to develop a natural language processing approach that extracts and standardizes dental diagnoses from unstructured clinical notes, mapping them to interoperable coding systems such as SNODENT. Attendees learned how this emerging pipeline can strengthen oral–medical data integration, enhance research capabilities, and lay the groundwork for future cross‑system interoperability.

Dr. Tumader Khouja, Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science at UFCD, presented key insights and trends in dental care utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using big data from commercial claims in MarketScan, representing millions of insured Americans, her analysis explored patterns across various dental care types and discussed explanatory factors behind these trends. The presentation highlighted how these findings can inform clinical practice and future policy decisions.

Finn Wilson, a doctoral candidate at the University of Buffalo, recently presented on the Ontology of Dental Care-Related Fear and Anxiety (ODFA) project. His talk introduced ontology concepts to dental professionals and researchers, highlighting how structured ontologies can enhance data interoperability and advance research on dental fear and anxiety

Cilia Zayas, Ph.D., M.H.A., M.S.F., a Postdoctoral Associate working with Dr. Astha Singhal will share her proposed NIH/NIDCR K01 mixed-methods study, investigating Medicare choices, dental coverage literacy, and their impact on dental care access and financial burden among older adults.

Daughty Beera, Postdoctoral Associate working with Dr. Bill Duncan, presented her research applying natural language processing techniques—specifically topic modeling—to analyze textbook content and inform an ontology focused on healthy aging and transcendence. This innovative work is supported by the NIH-funded PHASES U01 grant.

Owen Visser, a doctoral candidate in Biostatistics at the University of Florida, shared insights from his research on American beliefs about water fluoridation and related topics. The study analyzed discussions on X (formerly Twitter) during the recent presidential elections and provided a compelling look into public sentiment and discourse surrounding this issue.

Muhammad Walji, Ph.D., M.S., the D. Bradley McWilliams Professor and Chair of the Department of Clinical and Health Informatics School of Biomedical Informatics at UT Health Houston, provided an overview of the BigMouth Dental Data Repository and gave examples of how this big data could be used for clinical research.