Spring 2013 - Tufts University School of Dental Medicine

Dino Man
Stanley Alexander, D75A, was just 4 when his parents first
took him to a place known for its drama and majesty, the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City. On the
museum’s fourth floor, he stood amazed as he gazed at the
Tyrannosaurus skeleton. That instant the young Alexander
fell in love with dinosaurs—a passion that continues to this
day. In fact, he jokes, were it not for creature comforts, he
might have become a field paleontologist.
Alexander’s own children have met the museum dinosaurs,
including the skeleton of a long-necked Barosaurus rearing up
to protect its young from an Allosaurus, a predator with gnashing
teeth and sharp claws, both holding court in the grand
entrance.
As professor and chair of pediatric dentistry at Tufts School
of Dental Medicine, Alexander has an office that is a dinosaur
fan’s treasure trove. Children on their way to be treated in the
pediatric dental clinic often wander in and play with one of his
fossils or dinosaur toys. Some he has collected himself; others
are gifts from patients, colleagues, family and friends.
The saber-tooth cat jaw on his desk is especially fearsome,
with its 11-inch pair of canines and rows of tiny, sharp teeth.
“They attacked mammals,” he notes, matter-of-factly, “and
ripped them apart.”
On the floor is a plaster footprint of a Dilophosaurus made
at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Conn., which has 2,000
dinosaur tracks. Alexander lugged 50 pounds of material into
the park to make the cast. There are also dinosaur cartoons,
a Tyrannosaurus rex made out of leaded glass, a tie pin in
the shape of an Apatosaurus and fuzzy dice shaped like
a Triceratops. Even his business card has a picture of an
Allosaurus dashing to a dental appointment.
When Alexander taught orthodontics at Long Island’s Stony
Brook University, where he was a professor for 28 years, he had
his students participate in a scavenger hunt at the American
Children on their way to be treated in the pediatric dental
clinic often wander in and play with one of Stanley Alexander’s
fossils or dinosaur toys.
Museum of Natural History. After all, he says, the skulls, jaws
and teeth they had to search for are related to dentistry and
orthodontics. He has yet to assign his Massachusetts students
to a similar scavenger hunt, as the nearest place with fossils,
Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, doesn’t quite live
up to his beloved Manhattan institution.
He’s been teaching at Tufts for six years now, and sometimes
wonders what would have happened had he taken a different
path. During his own dental education at Tufts, he nearly
left to pursue a doctorate in paleontology, a field perhaps less
practical than the one he chose. What changed his mind It
wasn’t just the lack of a comfortable bed and a hot shower.
“My parents talked me out of it,” he says.
—marjorie howard
at the University of Maryland.
He plans to join his mother in
practice in Massachusetts when
he graduates.
Fern E. Selesnick-
D85 Frisch, took over
the dental office of Angelo G.
Boncore, D66, in January 2010,
and renamed it Marblehead
Dental.
David J. Ward
D89 received his associate
fellowship in the American
Academy of Implant Dentistry
in 2011.
DG89 Lyon
Hamburg
has completed his 20th year
as the staff endodontist at
Children’s Hospital of Eastern
Ontario. He also recently served
with the Dental Volunteers
for Israel in Jerusalem, which
provides free dental services to
impoverished Jewish, Christian
and Muslim children.
Steven A. Brown
D91is serving as president
of the Rhode Island Dental
Association for 2012–13.
Michelle M. Dorsey was
installed as president of the
Brevard County Dental Society
in Florida in September 2012.
Nishan A. Odabashian was
named president of the
California State Association
of Endodontists at its biannual
meeting on Oct. 26, 2012.
Odabashian and his wife, Lilit,
PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS spring 2013 tufts dental medicine 53