IU Dental Faculty, Staff Accept Key Administrative Posts

Four professors and one staff member at the IU School of Dentistry recently accepted key appointments in the school's administration.

Dr. Jeffrey A. Dean

The retirement this summer of longtime dental faculty member Dr. Chris H. Miller, who concurrently held several of the school's administrative posts and worked closely with the school's dean, Dr. Lawrence I. Goldblatt, has led to a variety of new appointments among the dental faculty.

Miller's positions as the dental school's Executive Associate Dean and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs were filled by Dr. Jeffrey A. Dean, professor of pediatric dentistry and orthodontics and current national president of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry.

Dean is a graduate of IU's dental, pediatric dentistry, and orthodontic programs. He joined IU's full-time dental faculty in 1990, and had been serving in recent years as chair of the Oral Facial Development department.

A well-known figure in children's dentistry, Dean is a current co-author of the highly respected textbook Dentistry for the Child and Adolescent, which after nearly four decades in print is now in its eighth edition. Dean is a diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry (ABPD) and a past president of the ABPD's College of Diplomates.

Dr. Michael J. Kowolik

Miller's position as Associate Dean for Graduate Education was filled by Dr. Michael J. Kowolik, professor of periodontics.

Kowolik earned his dental and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Edinburgh and completed a fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Before joining IU's full-time faculty in 1998, he held positions as a research fellow at Procter & Gamble, and prior to that, as a faculty member at the University of Leeds.

Kowolik has been funded in recent years by the NIH to study dental plaque accumulation as a risk factor for heart disease. He holds several adjunct and affiliate appointments on campus, including those in the Department of Public Health and the IU Center for Bioethics. He actively promotes and contributes to graduate education and research at institutions in Mexico and Central America.

Dr. Jack E. Schaaf

Yet another of Miller's administrative roles - that of Director of Infection Control - was assumed by his longtime colleague Dr. Jack E. Schaaf, associate professor of dental diagnostic sciences and director of the IUSD Screening Clinic.

Schaaf is a graduate of IU's dental and master's degree programs and a diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine. He was appointed to the full-time faculty in 1978.

For much of his career Schaaf has been extensively involved as a guiding force in the school's infection control and occupational safety programs and policies. He has often accepted additional community service roles, including his past efforts as a faculty member with the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center and as the staff dentist from 1977 to 1997 for the Marion County Sheriff's Department.

In other administrative changes, the school's Oral Facial Development department has been divided into the Department of Pediatric Dentistry and the Department of Orthodontics and Oral Facial Genetics.

Dr. James E. Jones

Dr. James E. Jones, professor of pediatric dentistry and a former administrator on the IPFW campus, was appointed chair of Pediatric Dentistry.

Jones is a dental graduate of the University of Louisville, where he also briefly taught. He has a master's degree and Ed.D. degree from IU, and a Ph.D. from Universidad Empresarial, Costa Rica. He also completed a Robert Wood Johnson Dental Services Research fellowship at Harvard University.

Jones' 20-year career at IU includes 12 years as dean of the School of Health Sciences and College of Health and Human Services on the IPFW campus. At Fort Wayne, he also chaired Dental Education and directed the Health Science Research Institute. He returned to the dental school in 2005 to direct the pediatric dentistry division. He is also a former pediatric dentistry chair at the University of Tennessee.

Nadine C. Florek

Staff member Nadine C. Florek was named the dental school's Director of Technology Services. First appointed at the school in 1998, she had served since 2003 as the office's assistant director until being named acting director in January 2007.

Florek is a former owner of a PC service company in Texas. She has completed a variety of computer training programs, including Microsoft Certified Professional and Dell SAN (Storage Area Network), and is trained as a certified technician for Dell and Fujitsu.

Two current faculty members have been named interim department chairs while searches are under way for permanent administrators: Dr. James K. Hartsfield Jr., for the newly established Orthodontics and Oral Facial Genetics department, and Dr. Vanchit John for Periodontics and Allied Dental Programs. The latter was chaired by Dr. E. Brady Hancock for 20 years, until his retirement on June 30.