Gaudilliere, Helms Receives NIH R25 Funding to Support Diversity in Oral Healthcare
September 23, 2024
Professor Jill Helm, DDS, PhD and Clinical Associate Professor Dyani Gaudilliere, DDS, MPH recently received R25 funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand the STaRS program to address diversity and opportunity gaps in oral healthcare professions.
For more than 20 years, Helms and the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery have hosted a summer internship program designed around the principle that education is the single, most powerful tool to improving human health. Science, Technology, and Reconstructive Surgery (STaRS) has helped hundreds of young people find the challenges, excitement, and rewards that a career in healthcare and biomedical research provides.
The new program—named Research and Mentoring Program for Underrepresented Pre-dental Students (RAMP UP)—aims to inspire underrepresented minority, first-generation, and low-income high school and community college students to pursue careers in oral healthcare.
“Achieving equitable oral healthcare access and outcomes will always be a journey but as a starting point, we have to recognize the social and cultural barriers that have historically limited the participation of women and people of color in the field of dental medicine,” said Helms. “Leading organizations in the field of dental medicine support pipeline and pathway programs like RAMP UP as a means to increase diversity in the oral healthcare professions, so I am delighted to partner with Dyani in bringing this program to life.”
Additional features of RAMP UP that are made possible by R25 funding include school-year career awareness activities that will be carried out in partnership with staff and faculty from the Department and members of the Mountain View/Los Altos school district including Dr. Lynette Gilson and Amber Woodward. These school-year activities will range from visits to the Department of Surgery’s Anatomy lab—led by Dr. Bruce Fogel, DDS—to hands-on activities in wet labs led by Fabiana Aellos, DDS; Bo Liu, DDS, PhD; and Pedro Cuevas. Stanford undergraduates and graduates including Melody Ly, Jerri Anna Roper, Isaias Martinez, Milo Golding, Allison Wan, and Eunice Jeong have played critical roles in these outreach activities.
“Stanford may not have a dental school but at its core, our institution is devoted to the discovery and transmission of knowledge, made possible by ensuring a diversity of cultures, races and ethnicities, genders, political and religious beliefs on our campus,” said Helms. “I cannot be more proud of the team who made this dream a reality.”