Founded in 1878, the School of Dental Medicine is among the oldest university-affiliated dental schools in the nation. This year, the School will confer 181 Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry (DMD) degrees. A hallmark of the four-year DMD program is a focus on developing clinicians skilled in providing evidence-based care to a diverse patient base, including persons with disabilities.
Gabriella Ciancimino, Mauritania Pol Nuris, and Alvin Zad are among the Class of 2024 who will graduate with a DMD from the School of Dental Medicine on May 20.
A National Health Service Corps (NHSC) scholar at Penn Dental Medicine, Gabriella Ciancimino is moving on to a pediatrics residency, and then will spend the first four years of her dental career working in a federally qualified health center. Ciancimino is one of 12 NHSC scholars in the Penn Dental Medicine DMD Class of 2024. “I will be equipped to be the dentist I always dreamt of becoming—a provider with a niche for treating children and people with special needs throughout their lifetime.”
Penn Dental Medicine’s Mauritania Pol Nuris earned her DMD with honors in community oral health. She is among 88 DMD students graduating with honors. A native of Cuba, Pol Nuris was part of the School’s program for advanced standing students in which foreign-trained dentists who wish to practice in the U.S. join the DMD class and earn their degree in two and a half years. There were 51 graduates in the Class of 2024 who were advanced standing students, representing 20 countries.
Alvin Zad earned a master’s in law along with his DMD through Penn Dental Medicine’s dual-degree offerings with other Penn schools. Zad was one of seven students in the Penn Dental Medicine Class of 2024 to earn a dual degree, which along with a master’s in law included graduates who earned a master’s of bioethics, a master’s of public health, and a master’s of science in education.
Read more at Penn Dental Medicine.
