ACCE Day, Rachel Kogan

What advice would you give to students pursuing research in a challenging project, a new field, or for the first time in their career?

Dr. Hwang advises students to be patient when facing a challenge in their research. Many steps of a project cannot be done quickly, or a hypothesis simply will not work and you are required to start from scratch. A major goal of research is to make sure the information reported is valid, therefore although it is frustrating and may lack excitement, building a project back up from the ground is sometimes a requirement. Research experiments can also be expensive and take a significant amount of time to conduct to test a hypothesis. Students should be resilient and creative with their thinking, referring to references but additionally searching for new knowledge and loopholes from existing studies.

Is there anything else you would like to share with the Penn Dental Medicine community?

Dr. Hwang is very excited about incorporating his engineering background to biology and oral health applications at Penn Dental. He has many exciting ideas and looks forward to the future of his research. He has had several publications with students, takes on summer research students, including some who continue their research during the fall and spring semesters. Dr. Hwang truly enjoys working with dental students, and appreciates the time they work in his lab despite limited time and academic responsibilities. His favorite aspect of student research is to see students explore their creative potential!

ACCE//DAY

Advances in Clinical Care and Education

RACHEL KOGAN D’23

Being able to participate in Penn Dental Medicine’s First ACCE Day as a dental student this past year was an incredible experience. Although the school has previously showcased students’ research as part of Research Day, this was the first year where students who have participated in community oral health, clinical, and educational research could have a day of their own. The first half of the day focused on displaying student and post-doc posters and allowed time for students to visit their peer’s posters and learn more about their projects. This portion of the event made me realize just how pervasive research is throughout the student body, how motivated students are to participate in it, and how talented my future colleagues are. This was a great opportunity to step back, see how much time and energy my peers dedicated to furthering key aspects of dentistry on top of their already rigorous and extensive didactic and clinical work. It is an incredible accomplishment.

The second half of the day included faculty judging of poster presentations and project selection for awards. Students were allowed to present either individually or as a team. Personally, I am very thankful to have been able to share my passion for community oral health alongside my team during the poster presentation. The event showcased not only students’ project performance, but demonstrated extensive peer collaboration, a key component in furthering the dental field. The award ceremony further amplified the hard work of students from numerous clinical and non-clinical backgrounds. Being able to witness the talent and the breath of programs at the school was remarkable. I expect ACCE day to continue growing in popularity, as more and more students dive into the more humanitarian aspects of dentistry and am excited to see what next year’s day will bring.