ALUMNIHIGHLIGHTS
PROFILES, GATHERINGS & ENGAGEMENT
“As an alumnus, I hope to leave a legacy of my own that will benefit others as I have benefitted. In my lifetime, I believe I can help make Penn Dental Medicine bigger and better.”
ALUMNI PROFILE: DR. DAVID SHEN (D'79, GD'81)
— DR. DAVID SHEN (D’79, GD’81)
Q&A: Board of Advisors Chairman David Shen (D’79, GD’81) In June, Penn Dental Medicine alumnus Dr. David Shen (D’79, GD’81) was named Chairman of Penn Dental Medicine’s Board of Advisors after nearly 10 years as an active and dedicated board member (see related story, page 4). During his long tenure, he also has taken on leadership roles in fundraising campaigns for the School, including serving as Co-Chair of the Power of Penn Dental Medicine capital campaign, which raised approximately $70 million for School facilities and programs (see related story, page 2). In addition, Dr. Shen has provided significant philanthropic support to the School — he named Penn Dental Medicine’s admissions area and supported the Department of Orthodontics centennial celebration. An accomplished clinician, Dr. Shen’s orthodontics practice — OrthoWorks Invisalign and Orthodontics Group — consists of three offices in San Francisco and
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eight others throughout the Bay Area, where he lives with his wife, son, and daughter. His practice, one of the country’s top providers of Invisalign, employs 50 team members and has served more than 60,000 patients. He is also founder of the Northern California Asian Dental Association and has been an assistant professor at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Earlier this fall, Dr. Shen returned to campus to lead his first meeting as Board Chair. He shared his thoughts on his new role, hopes and goals for Penn Dental Medicine’s future, the keys to his successful practice, and words of wisdom for Penn Dental Medicine’s newest graduates.
You have dedicated almost 10 years to Penn Dental Medicine as a board member. Now that you are Board Chair, what do you hope to help the Dean achieve next? As a Board Chair, my goal is always to help the Dean strengthen the School and make it more robust. When I was first invited to join the board, one of the major goals was to bring our facilities in line with the overall excellence of our education. We worked on a multi-million-dollar campaign that has made our campus truly state-of-the-art. I am so happy to say that we offer the best dental education at the best dental education facility. Over the last two years, Dean Wolff has introduced several new, highly innovative centers and programs — the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health, the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry, the Care Center for Persons with Disabilities, and the Center for Clinical & Translational Research — and brought aboard some very talented researchers and leaders to run them. In doing so, he has placed the school solidly at the forefront of policy and research in dentistry. It’s really a remarkable achievement. Our job now as a board is to build and strengthen these exciting new initiatives and enable them to meet the goals that have been set.
