The 2008 Hinman Student Research Symposium was held Oct. 31 - Nov. 2, 2008 at the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The Symposium features oral and poster presentations of research projects by dental students and graduate students from across North America. At this year’s Symposium, 91 students represented 46 dental schools in 27 states, the District of Columbia, and 4 Canadian provinces.

     Cosponsors of the Symposium are the UTHSC College of Dentistry and the Hinman Dental Society. The Symposium is supported in part by grants from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research(NIDCR), the ADEA Gies Foundation, and the Procter & Gamble Company.

     Six awards are made for the most outstanding presentations, three in clinical research and three in basic science research, in addition to an award from the National Student Research Group (NSRG) of the American Association for Dental Research.

     This year, one of the awards in clinical research was won by New Jersey Dental School student Harsh Shah(’10). The research project studied the effect of environmental factors on changes in color in materials that are used to construct prostheses for patients following orofacial surgery. The project was directed by Dr. T.K. Vaidyanathan, Professor in the Department of Restorative Dentistry at the New Jersey Dental School in Newark, New Jersey.

Harsh Shah ('10)