The ADA Foundation (ADAF) has named Thomas C. Hart, DDS, PhD, as the new director of the ADAF Dr. Anthony Volpe Research Center. Dr. Hart''s tenure will begin on April 2, 2015.
Dr. Hart currently serves as a professor of periodontics and the director of craniofacial population sciences research at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. He also currently serves as chair of the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs.
In addition to his academic and research experience, Dr. Hart has clinical experience as a practicing dentist in in Winston-Salem, NC. He also has worked at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) in the National Institutes of Health, where he served as chief of the Human Craniofacial Genetics section of NIDCR from 2003 to 2010, and as clinical director of the agency from 2003 to 2008.
Formerly known as the Paffenbarger Research Center, the Dr. Anthony Volpe Research Center laboratory facility is operated by the ADA Foundation and is located at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal government research campus in Gaithersburg, MD. Previously operated by the ADA and then jointly by the ADA and the ADA Foundation, the lab conducts unique research in cutting-edge fields of biomaterial and tissue engineering technologies.