Bhavna Shroff

Virginia Commonwealth University

 The American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF) has provided significant help to faculty members across the nation by funding their research projects and supporting their professional development for over a decade. I am currently a professor and the graduate program director at the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Orthodontics. Prior to being appointed at Virginia Commonwealth University, I served as a fulltime faculty member at University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. I love teaching and research, and I always wanted to teach fulltime since I started dental school. My teaching responsibilities have always included both a substantial clinical component and an active research program. The AAOF biomedical research grants have been instrumental in allowing me to continue my research at these two institutions. They helped me develop knowledge in the field of biology of tooth movement and eruption, and have been essential to the development and advancement of my academic career. But more importantly, as I experienced the positive impact of these biomedical research grants on my own research, on the residents and the dental students that help me accomplish the research, it became very clear that I needed to contribute to the AAOF. I decided to do so because it is so important for the future of Orthodontic education and Orthodontics as a profession. The funding that was awarded to me as AAOF biomedical research grants supported my research activities but also helped my departments and my schools. It helped orthodontic education in various different ways, and it had a very positive impact on the education of the next generation of orthodontists. Through the grants that are awarded, the AAOF insures that orthodontic education and research will always be at the cutting edge and that the profession will always offer the optimum treatment to patients. Ultimately, as the AAOF supports orthodontic faculty members, departments, and research, it benefits our patients by continuously improving the service that we offer them. I am very thankful to have been awarded these grants because they were essential to my professional development and I am very proud that I was able to contribute back to the AAOF.