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Faculty and Staff Notes
Faculty Member Margherita Fontana Appointed Chair of CRSE Department
Faculty member Dr. Margherita Fontana has been appointed chair of the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics (CRSE), effective January 1, 2025.
Dean Jacques Nör announced the appointment after an extensive search by a committee of faculty, staff, residents and alumni. Nör was the department’s previous chair prior to starting as Dean in August 2023.
Fontana is the Clifford Nelson Endowed Professor of Dentistry in the CRSE department. She joined the school in 2009 as an associate professor, with tenure, and was promoted to professor in 2014.
Fontana is recognized internationally as a leading scientist in the field of cariology and has an extensive clinical research background in childhood caries management. More specifically, she has published research and lectured extensively on the design and assessment of strategies for reducing disparities in how dental caries are recognized and treated in children in underserved regions. She currently president of the Organization for Caries Research (ORCA), an international scientific organization based in Europe that publishes epidemiological, clinical and laboratory studies about dental caries, fluorosis, erosion, and related dental diseases in its journal Caries Research.
She is the principal investigator (PI) on two National Institutes of Health grants totaling $18.3 million, and is the PI or co-PI on nine corporate grants. She has authored more than 147 peer-reviewed publications and 11 book chapters, and has been invited to speak at more than 260 national and international conferences. She also has served as a member of key state advisory committees on fluoridation, sealants and oral health.
Fontana is the recipient of numerous awards for her research and mentoring.
The CRSE department has been led on an interim basis by faculty member Dr. Ron Heys in the last year after Nör was named dean.
Faculty Member Sarah Tomaka is New Director of Dental School’s CBCE External Rotation Program
School of Dentistry faculty member Dr. Sarah Tomaka has been named Assistant Dean for the Community-Based Collaborative Care and Education (CBCE) program, which is the school’s expansive external rotation program for dental students.
Dean Jacques Nör announced the appointment, effective Sept. 1.
In her new role, Dr. Tomaka will support the work of predoctoral students in their rotations at about 15 clinics around Michigan. CBCE is a year-round program that is a graded course in the dental school curriculum, sending fourth-year students to clinics around the state for 12 weeks, usually for two weeks at a time. Third-year students also participate in CBCE, with fewer rotations for shorter periods of time. Most sites are Federally-Qualified Health Care (FQHC) clinics providing dental care to underserved patients. Some are Dental Service Organization (DSO) clinics, and some have more narrow patient populations, for children or military veterans. Regardless of the type of patients, all of the clinics enhance the broad diversity of patients and dental treatments beyond the normal patient pool scheduled by students at the dental school.
Tomaka will lead the recruitment of new CBCE sites and maintain strong relationships with current sites, working with governmental and nongovernmental agencies in support of the program to ensure its sustainability. She will implement continuous assessment and improvement protocols as well as oversee the further development and implementation of a curriculum of interprofessional experiential education.
Tomaka takes over leadership of the program from Dr. Mark Fitzgerald, who is stepping down from his role of Associate Dean of CBCE while continuing to serve the school as Senior Associate Dean. Tomaka has been part of the CBCE program since 2023, serving as Associate Director under Fitzgerald.
Dr. Berna Saglik was named the Director of the Graduate Prosthodontic Program, effective May 1. The appointment was announced by Dr. Jan Hu, chair of the Department of Biologic and Materials Sciences & Prosthodontics. Dr. Saglik had served as the interim Assistant Director of the Graduate Prosthodontic Program since July 1, 2021. Hu noted that Saglik worked with Dr. Fei Liu, who served as interim director of the program, to transition the graduate clinic into its newly renovated facility after the school’s major Blue Renew project. They revamped the graduate curriculum to incorporate digital dentistry training, improved the Prosthodontic clinical operations and established collaborations with other specialties and industry partners to bring resources to enhance the residents’ educational experience. Saglik received her DDS degree from the University of Marmara in Istanbul, Turkey, and then completed her master’s degree in Prosthodontics at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. She joined the BMS&P department in August 2007 as clinical assistant professor and rose to the rank of clinical associate professor in 2015. Saglik is a diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine and the American Board of Prosthodontics. In making the announcement, Hu thanked Dr. Liu for his dedication to the Graduate Prosthodontic Program.
Dr. James P. Simmer, professor of dentistry in the Department of Biologic and Materials Sciences & Prosthodontics, retired effective, Sept. 30, 2024. Simmer received his bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1976 and his DDS in 1980, both from U-M, and his PhD in biochemistry from Wayne State University in 1990. His postdoctoral training was at the University of Southern California’s Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology from 1991-93. He was an assistant professor in pediatric dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio from 1993-99 and was promoted to associate professor in 1999. He joined U-M’s School of Dentistry as an associate professor in 2002 and was promoted to professor in 2006. His academic journey was marked by his commitment to education, innovative research and decades of continuous National Institutes of Health funding pioneering the field of dental genetics. Simmer is internationally recognized for his research on genetic regulations of tooth development and biomineralization. A 2023 bibliometric analysis described him as the most influential scholar in the field of tooth development.
Faculty Member Livia Tenuta to Lead International Caries-focused Journal
School of Dentistry faculty member Dr. Livia Tenuta has been named editor-in-chief of the international journal Caries Research. The journal is a publication of the Organization for Caries Research, or ORCA, an international scientific organization based in Europe. The journal publishes epidemiological, clinical and laboratory studies in dental caries, fluorosis, erosion, and related dental diseases. It is published six times a year, with most readers accessing it online, but it is also available in print.
Dr. Tenuta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics at the dental school. She has longstanding connections with Caries Research, which has published 28 of her 96 peer-reviewed research papers. Her research, which has been published in more than 30 other journals as well, examines different methods of fluoride use in caries prevention and the impact of dietary sugars on the dental biofilm cariogenicity.
Tenuta has also served Caries Research and ORCA in other capacities. She has been a peer reviewer of manuscripts submitted to the journal since 2007, and served on ORCA’s Advisory Council from 2013-20 and as Membership Secretary and Webmaster from 2015-20.
Tenuta’s wider experience with academic publishing includes currently serving her third three-year term on the editorial board of the Journal of Dental Research, a publication of the International Association for Dental Research and the American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research. For the last year she was Associate Editor of the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry.
In her new role, Tenuta will lead a team of about a dozen Associate Editors from universities around the world, including the U.S., the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Switzerland, Brazil, Chile and Japan. The editors review 250-300 manuscripts submitted annually by international researchers to consider whether they present new, innovative and advanced caries research with scientifically rigorous methods. Editors, assisted by reviewers with expertise on the topic of the research, either accept or reject the manuscript, almost always asking for varying degrees of revision even for those that are published. The editor-in-chief makes the final decision about whether the paper is published. The process can take several months, a time frame Tenuta said she hopes to reduce during her tenure as editor.
Tenuta is the second U-M School of Dentistry faculty member holding a prominent role with ORCA. Dr. Margherita Fontana is currently president of the organization.
