Policy Center Advisory Board
Policy Center Staff
Policy Center Advisory Board
Cashion is currently at at-large trustee on the AAPD board of trustees, and is a member of the Council on Government Affairs Pediatric Dental Medicaid and CHIP Advisory Committee. He has a private practice in Greensboro, N.C., and also holds a position as adjunct assistant professor at the University of North Carolina. Cashion is a 2006 graduate of the AAPD Leadership Institute. He has served on the Council on Government Affairs, and chaired the Council on Membership and Membership Services. He has been president of the North Carolina Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and the Guilford County Dental Society. A diplomate of the ABPD, he received his dental degree and pediatric dental training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Crall received his dental degree, master's degree and certificate in pediatric dentistry from the University of Iowa, and is a diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry (Board Certified). He was selected to serve as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Dental Health Services Research Scholar at Harvard from 1984-86, and subsequently obtained master's and doctoral degrees in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1997, Crall was appointed as the first dental scholar-in-residence at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), which is now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). He has served on several national panels including the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health?care Organizations (JCAHO) Quality Improvement Task Force; the Pew Health Professions Commission Dental Advisory Panel; the Milbank-Reforming States Group (RSG) Pediatric Oral Health Work Group; the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) Pediatric Oral Health Expert Panel (chair); the National Governors Association Oral Health Policy Academy Programs, and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Advisory Committee for Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry. Crall was a member of the faculty of the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine from 1986-2000, and held appointments as head of the department of pediatric dentistry, Associate Dean for Program Evaluation and Planning, and director of the department of dentistry at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center. From 2000-2003 he served as director of Columbia University's Oral Health Disparities and Policy Center and di?rector of the HRSA/MCHB National Oral Health Policy Center. In 2004, Crall joined the UCLA School of Dentistry as chairman of the department of pediatric dentistry, while continuing to direct the National Oral Health Policy Center. He has been the AAPD Child Advocate since 1995, served as chair of the AAPD's Council on Government Affairs from 1999-2003, and continues to serves as an ex-officio member of this council. Crall served as project director for the AAPD HS Dental Home Initiative from 2007-2010. Crall was honored as "Pediatric Dentist of the Year" by the AAPD in 2005.
Filstrup practices pediatric dentistry full-time in a private group practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a Board Certified Pediatric Dentist and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry. She is currently the chair for the AAPD Council on Clinical Affairs and also serves as a member of the task force on strengthening the science in the AAPD’s guidelines and journals and a member of Healthy Smiles, Healthy Children Grants and Programs Committee. Filstrup earned her DDS from the University of Michigan’s School of Dentistry in 1999, where she also completed her undergraduate studies and received her Bachelor of Science in biology in 1995. Filstrup earned her Master of Science in Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Michigan in 2001 after completing a graduate specialty program from the University of Michigan and C. S. Mott Children’s Health Center where she was a fellow in Pediatric Dentistry. In 2003, she received the award for Excellence in Pediatric Dentistry from the Kenneth A. Easlick Society. She lives in Boston with her husband, David J. Fiorillo, who is a general dentist.
Largent has had full-time pediatric dentistry in Paducah, Ky., for 27 years. She has been an active member of the Purchase Dental Society and the Kentucky Dental Association, serving both as president. Largent has served as an alternate delegate to the ADA since 2004. She has serve on ADA reference committees, and is a past member of the AAPD Council on Ethics, Bylaws and Judicial Affairs. Largent has served as member and chair of the Council on Bylaws, and is chair of the AAPD Council on Government Affairs. She served as president of the AAPD from 2008 to 2009. Largent is a board member of Healthy Smiles, Healthy Children, the Foundation of the AAPD, and is serving as that organization's Program and Grant Committee Chair. She completed the AAPD Foundation Leadership Institute Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 2004-2005. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, and received a certificate in pediatric dentistry from the University of Kentucky, where she serves on the Dean's Advisory Council. She and her husband Tom have two adult children and three grandchildren.
Lee is an associate professor and currently on the faculty of both the Departments of Pediatric Dentistry in the School of Dentistry and Health Policy and Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as the director of the School of Dentistry's Health Services Research Program. She is currently the chair for the AAPD Council on Scientific Affairs and also serves as a consultant to numerous other AAPD councils including, the Council on Governmental Affairs, Council on Dental Benefit Programs, and the Council on Postdoctoral Education. Lee received her M.P.H. and D.D.S. degrees from Columbia University and her Certificate in Pediatric Dentistry and Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was also a NIDCR National Research Service Award recipient and post-doc fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. She is a board-certified pediatric dentist and an active member of the medical staff at UNC Hospitals and practices in the Dental Faculty Practice in the School of Dentistry. She has over a 100 peer-reviewed manuscript and abstracts and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Dental Research, Journal of Public Health Dentistry and Dental Traumatology. She is involved in teaching, clinical practice and research and maintains several research grants from HRSA, NIH and AHRQ.Lee is the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards including the 2008 American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Jerome Miller "For the Kids" Award. In 2010, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers from President Barack Obama.
Dr. Indru Punwani currently holds the title of Chicago Dental Society Endowed Professor and Department Head at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Department of Pediatric Dentistry as well as Post Graduate Program Director and Chief of Dental Service for the University of Illinois Medical Center, Chicago.
Punwani's professional activities include key local and national organizations, such as Fellow in American College of Dentists, International College of Dentists, American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Odontographic Society of Chicago (Associate in the Institute of Medicine), Pierre Fauchard Academy, and the Honors College at UIC. He is a past president of the Illinois Society of Dentistry for Children, Illinois Society of Pediatric Dentists, American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (Region 1V), College of Diplomates, and the Omicron Kappa Upsilon, Sigma and Supreme Chapters.
Punwani serves or has served as a consultant/member of the Review Committee of the ADA Commission on Dental Accreditation, Chicago Head Start programs, the Illinois Department of Public Aid and WHO/PAHO. He serves as a grant reviewer for HRSA and the Bureau of Maternal Child Health and Oral Health Advisor to the Illinois Department of Public Aid. He has served as a co-investigator to the Illinois Regional Health Workforce Center HRSA Grant, and as principal investigator for the HRSA Pediatric Dentistry Program Expansion Grant and the HRSA subcontract for the Pediatric Dentistry curriculum for primary care physicians. Punwani was an ad hoc advisor to Lt. Governor Patrick Quinn and his Health Policy Staff, and was honored by Illinois Lt. Governor Patrick Quinn as a recipient of the Healthy Smiles Hero award. The Infant Welfare Society of Chicago also honored Punwani recently with the Champion of Children Award. Punwani's credits include 200 publications in refereed journals, and he has lectured nationally and internationally.
Punwani graduated from Nair Hospital Dental College, Bombay, India in 1961. He completed his fellowship in Pedodontics at the Guggenheim Dental Clinic, New York in 1963 and his residency training and graduate education at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1966. He received a DDS from the University of Bergen, Norway in 1970. Punwani has served on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh (1966-68), University of Bergen, Norway (1968-72) and at the University of Illinois in Chicago since 1972. He practices Pediatric Dentistry on a part-time basis in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Policy Center Staff
Casamassimo received his dental degree from Georgetown University in 1974 and a Master of Science and Certificate in Pediatric Dentistry from the University of Iowa in 1976. He has taught at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry (1976-78) and the University of Colorado School of Dentistry (1978-88). He is former editor-in-chief of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) and its journal, Pediatric Dentistry, and also past president of AAPD. Casamassimo is past president of the Academy of Dentistry for the Handicapped and past editor of Journal of Dentistry for the Handicapped and Journal of Dentistry for Children.
He has authored over 300 publications including three books, 31 text chapters and seven monographs in the areas of pediatric dentistry, care of children with special health care needs, and dental education. His research interests include oral health of children with special health care needs, health services research, and oral health disparity. He has obtained grants and contracts from private and public sources totaling over $2 million dollars for research, prevention and care projects.
He is a member of a number of professional organizations including the American Dental Association and the American Dental Education Association and is a member of Omicron Kappa Upsilon honor fraternity, a fellow in AAPD, and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He currently is a delegate to the Ohio Dental Association from the Columbus Dental Society where he served as President in 2008. He is currently Secretary of the Ohio Dental Association. Casamassimo is currently chair of the Review Committee for Pediatric Dentistry of the Commission on Dental Accreditation.
Casamassimo has directed studies addressing early childhood caries and its management and represents the AAPD on projects related to infant oral health, maternal oral health, school health, and dental education. Casamassimo has received numerous professional, humanitarian and teaching awards in his career. He is board-certified in pediatric dentistry and practices at Nationwide Children's Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio, where he is a past-president of the medical staff.
Silverman obtained master's degrees in Labor and Industrial Relations and in Social Work as well as a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois. Her background includes over 10 years of experience in early childhood mental health, including nine years supervising and developing programs to promote positive parent-child relationships, prevent child abuse and enhance school readiness in at-risk families with young children. Prior to coming to the AAPD, she has served in a leadership capacity on various state-wide early childhood committees, including the Healthy Families Illinois Executive Committee and the Early Childhood Mental Health Subcommittee of the Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership. She has presented at state-wide and national conferences on topics related to enhancing the parent-child relationship, including field presentations for the Zero to Three National Training Institute on father involvement and on working with pregnant and parenting mothers who have experienced sexual abuse. Silverman was co-author on journal article published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. Since that time she has published various articles on early childhood and parenting issues, including a zero to three article on the integration of Infant Mental Health principals in home visiting programs. Silverman was employed by AAPD from September 2007 to December 2010 as the project manager for the AAPD Head Start Dental Home Initiative.
For additional information contact the Center's Assistant Director Jan Silverman at POHRPC@aapd.org.