Highlights: Research Day 2022

Research Day is our yearly forum to highlight the faculty’s current research accomplishments. This year, Research Day titled “Vanquishing Foes: The Haapasalo Method” was focused on aspects of endodontic treatments and celebrated the research legacy of our very own Dr. Markus Haapasalo’s vast contributions to the field.

Dr. Haapasalo, who will be retiring this year, has had a prolific career with impacts in endodontic research, and academia. His highly productive research endeavours and 250 peer-reviewed articles have generated an h-index of 60 and over 10,000 citations, and as a clinical endodontist, he has focused his research on agents for disinfecting dental root canals and oral biofilms. He has lectured in approximately 40 countries around the world and received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Louis I. Grossman Award from the American Association of Endodontists for the cumulative publication of significant research studies that have made an extraordinary contribution to endodontology. Congratulations to Dr. Haapasalo on an amazing career!

This year’s Research Day program was a great success with 517 unique webinar viewers and 200 unique viewers via livestream. The program included presentations by several UBC faculty: Dr. Haapasalo, Dr. Eleni Irinakis, Dr. Mark Parhar and Dr. Ya Shen. The keynote presentation was provided by Dr. Anil Kishen from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry. Dr. Rick Carvalho, Head of OBMS, served as host of the event and Dr. Jolanta Aleksejuniene, Director of Graduate and Post-Doctoral Affairs, introduced the student Rapid Talks.

The program also included a Rapid Talks session, eight of our undergraduate and graduate students were given four minutes each to share their research projects with our large audience: Julia Burgess, Oh Run Kim, Ravdeep Mann, Robin Wintermute, Shivalika Katyal, Mohammadmahdi Salehi, Mohamed Amhmed, and Isra Ibrahim. The presentations were informative and demonstrated the breath of research being performed within the Faculty of Dentistry.

The event ended with our Research Poster Awards Ceremony. Thank you to all 37 students who competed in our research poster competition! First place winners were awarded $500, 2nd place received $250, and 3rd place was $100. Congratulations to all our Poster Award recipients and their supervisors:

Research Day 2022 Poster Competition Winners

Undergraduates

1st Place: Julia Burgess (Dr. Manso)

2nd Place: Niknaz Malekafzali (Dr. Manso)

3rd Place: Wade Gao (Dr. Vora)

MSc Clinical/Public Health

1st Place: Robin Wintermute (Dr. Larjava)

2nd Place: Michael Coyne (Dr. Brondani)

MSc Basic Science

1st Place: James Jeon (Dr. Poh)

2nd Place: Ilena Yim (Dr. Laronde)

PhD

1st Place: Dipon Saha (Dr. Bromme)

2nd Place: Isra Ibrahim (Dr. Richman)

Students Julia Burgess, Mohammadmahdi Salehi, and Shivalika Katyal give their Rapid Talk presentations