Dean’s Research Scholars 2025-2026
We are excited to announce the D29 recipients of the 2025-2026 Dean’s Research Honors Scholarship. These six first-year dental students are passionate in their desire to pursue research opportunities and have superior academic records coming into dental school. These students each chose a faculty research mentor with whom they will meet regularly to discuss relevant publications as they work together to conceptualize and create a research proposal, perform the research, and present a research poster at TUSDM’s annual Bates-Andrews Research Day in 2027. Advancing basic science, clinical, and public health research is central to the dental school’s mission. We understand that deepening our knowledge in these areas advances the field of dentistry and ultimately leads to better patient care.
Noor Baig
Noor was heavily involved in research as an undergraduate student at Harvard University. She first examined the psychological impact of digital technology on older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a team at Brigham and Women’s Division of Sleep Medicine. Then, wanting to expand her clinical exposure, she worked on a project investigating Alzheimer’s-related biomarkers in aqueous and vitreous humor in the Harvard Retinal Imaging Lab at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. For her Dean’s Research Scholarship, Noor will be working with Dr. Hend Alqaderi to develop and evaluate a domain-specific dental chatbot, Jumbo Dental AI, which is designed to provide evidence-based clinical decision support.
Andy Chang
After graduating from Northeastern University, Andy worked as a Measey Surgical Scholar at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, contributing to various pharmacogenomic and whole-exome sequencing studies, as well as conducting multiomic research studying 5 genetically modified pig-to human heart and kidney xenotransplantations. Following that, he conducted bioinformatic research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia utilizing NIH-funded genomic datasets to elucidate ancestry-specific genotype-phenotype correlations in orofacial clefts. At Tufts, his research for the Dean’s Research Scholarship will investigate the reasons for delayed tooth extractions in urgent care situations, whether it be local anesthetic failure, medical factors, or patient-driven factors.
Alexandra Diaz-Ariza
During Alexandra’s undergraduate education in biology at Florida International University, she first studied the role of neural crest-derived cells in the aortic valve’s extracellular matrix, and then joined a lab centered on public health and clinical outcomes that was preparing a study on post-Covid neurocognitive sequelae. Her role included recruiting patients as well as collecting and analyzing data from neurocognitive assessments, neuropsychiatric surveys and MRI scans. Her work at Tufts this year will focus on generating a high-quality dataset that can support the development of machine learning approaches for oral lesion classification. By curating a dataset derived from real-world clinical records, the project aims to provide a foundation for future research focused on improving diagnostic consistency and reducing bias in oral disease detection.
Leen Khankan
Leen’s research experiences during her undergraduate years at University of Rochester ranged from wet lab work investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying glaucoma, to screening and enrolling patients in a variety of clinical research studies in the emergency department, to work involving community-based support resources for caregivers of geriatric cancer patients. Through rapid and thematic analyses, the research team attempted to develop a sustainable, community-based support program tailored to the caregivers’ needs. At TUSDM, she intends to draw on her background in clinical research and community-based initiatives to develop community-based programs that raise awareness and improve access to preventative oral health care, particularly within immigrant and refugee populations.
Annie Lee
Annie engaged in a variety of research experiences throughout her undergraduate years at Tufts. She worked on a mixed-methods study examining social determinants associated with the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in the Asian community, and then she collaborated on a study interviewing Boston stakeholders and immigrants in Somerville, MA about their COVID-19 experiences. In 2023, she traveled to Rwanda to conduct research with African Quantitative Sciences and work as a research fellow at Move Up Global (MUG), a global health non-profit. Upon returning to the U.S., she helped conduct a retrospective case series dental study managing 12 cases of bone grafting materials for alveolar ridge preservation. This year, as a Dean’s Research Scholar, Annie plans to investigate the use of recombinant human platelet-derived growth factor-BB combination therapy for oral regeneration in private practice settings.
Irene Li
As an engineering major at Smith College, Irene had a variety of research experiences through two Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships and four semesters of Special Studies projects in biomedical engineering and chemistry labs. Following graduation, she worked as a Research Associate in two Boston-area biotechnology start-ups, contributing to cutting-edge cancer research projects. Irene’s research interests are driven by a fascination with the interaction of systemic health and oral health. Some of her past research has explored the link between obesity and cardiovascular disease, as well as analyzing oral health in adults with depression to reveal how mental health influences self-perceived oral health. As a Dean’s Research Scholars this year, Irene will be investigating oral adverse events of antibody-drug conjugates targeting solid tumors.
Isha Singh
Isha’s research experience began as an undergraduate and master’s degree student in Biology at Tufts, where she studied bioelectricity in a developmental model of a freshwater alga. After graduation, Isha joined Dr. Jonathan Garlick’s lab at TUSDM where she created three-dimensional in vitro soft tissue models that mimicked the oral mucosa and skin to study mechanisms of wound healing and scleroderma. Through her research, she was able to connect to the scleroderma patient community, and she realized how meaningful it is to connect the “bench to the bedside.” Isha is looking forward to continuing her research activities in the Garlick lab this year, where she will be modeling denture induced oral conditions in a 3D tissue testing platform to identify force thresholds which activate inflammatory pathways.