Residents

Graduate Prosthodontic Residents 2007-2008

First Year

Dr. Day Gates, Dr. Katie Conard, Dr. Matthew Bryington, Dr. Mauricio Castellanos

William (Day) Gates
Day is from Mobile, AL.  He completed a B.A. from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN prior to attending dental school.  He recently received a DMD degree from the University of Alabama in Birmingham in June, 2007.

Kathryn (Katie) Conard
Katie is a native of North Carolina.  She received her Bachelor of Science degree from Clemson University.  She then attended dental school at The University of North Carolina, graduating with her DDS degree in May, 2007.  Upon graduation, Dr. Conard received the Sward for outstanding Achievement in Prosthodontics from the American College of Prosthodontists.

Matthew Bryington
Matthew comes to us from Tampa, FL.  Prior to attending dental school, he completed a Bachelor of Science and graduated Summa cum laude from Emory University.  He was also inducted into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa honor society.  He graduated in May, 2007 from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine with a DMD degree.

Mauricio Castellanos
We welcome Mauricio from Caracas, Venezuela, where he received his DDS from the Central University of Venezuela in 2002.  Out of 200 students he was chosen as one of eleven teaching assistants.  Mauricio received two awards of excellence at graduation for being a teaching assistant and for several years being the captain of the soccer team.  He worked in private practice before he came to the United States.  He then completed the General Practice Residency Program at UNC in 2007 where he attended patients at the UNC Hospital Dental Clinic, VA Medical Center and Health Department.  His research will be based on creating new technology to improve the quality of life for patients with maxillofacial deformities.

Second Year

Dr. Carolina Vera, Dr. Ghadeer Thalji, Dr. Ming-Yi Chou

Ming-Yi Chou
Ming-Yi joins us from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She has completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Toronto prior to attending dental school. She has graduated in June 2006 from the University of Western Ontario with a DDS degree.

Ghadeer Thalji
Ghadeer comes to us from Ramallah, West Bank. She went to Dental School at University of Jordan, Amman where she graduated with her B.D.S degree in June, 2004.She then completed an internship for one year and worked in a private dental practice before she joined us.

Carolina Vera
Carolina comes to us from Mexico City, Mexico where she received her DDS from the National University of Mexico in 2000.  Upon graduation Carolina developed her own private practice before associating with one of the most prestigious esthetic and prosthodontic practices in Mexico.  Further her education and in preparation for her graduate work at UNC, Carolina received a Diploma in Prosthodontics for completion in 2003 in the specialty of Prosthodontics at the National University of Mexico.  In 2004 she attained a Diploma in Restorative and Esthetic Dentistry from the same university for completion in this specialty.  Throughout this period, she also completed various short courses and workshops in specific technical fields such as Implantology, Emergency Care, General and Adhesive Dentistry and Forensic Dentistry.  Currently Carolina is working on her research project entitled “Evaluation on post-implant facial bone resorption using the Sirona Galileos system for radiologic assessment.”

Third Year

Dr. Sorin Uram-Tuculescu, Dr. Deepali Jere, Dr. Juanli Guo, Dr. Ibrahim Duqum

Ibrahim Duqum
Ibrahim comes to us from Amman-Jordan.  He attended the Dental school at the University of Jordan where he graduated with his BDS in June 1997. Ibrahim worked for seven years as a general dentist in Jordan; five of them in the military in the Royal Medical Services. He joined the RMS in November, 1998 as a Cadet Dentist and resigned in March, 2004 as a first Lieutenant Dentist in order to pursue his Graduate education in Prosthodontics. Ibrahim’s research is related to dental implant surface. He is studying the effect of Beta one and Beta three integrins on Osteoblast implant interactions.

Juanli Guo
Juanli, from Shanxi, China, received her DMD from Beijing Medical University, School of Stomatology in 1998. She then completed her Master of Science degree and residency in Prosthodontics in Peking University School of Stomatoloty in 2001. In that same year, she entered the doctoral program in the School of Dentistry at UNC Chapel Hill. Her dissertation project, which she presented in October, 2007, is entitled “The he effect of Wnt signaling pathway on osteoblastic differentiation./' She is also working on several other research projects on tissue engineering and bone regeneration. In 2005, Juanli entered the Graduate Prosthodontics program in the School of Dentistry at UNC while finishing her PhD. She is a member of the International Association of Dental Research.

Deepali Jere
Deepali went to dental school at Bangalore University in South India. She completed her MPH from Johns Hopkins University in 2003. She worked on research projects in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at Ohio State University and University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research project is entitled, ‘In vivo evaluation of bone regeneration using cross-linked scaffolds’. She won the 2006 American Academy of Fixed Prosthodontics Tylman Grant which supports her research.

Sorin Uram-Tulescu
Sorin comes to us from Timisoara, Romania. While there, he graduated from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, School of Dentistry in 1991. He has worked as a senior dentist and also in private practice. Hi has authored and coauthored 16 books and courses, one of which he won the Romanian Academy Prize "Gheorghe Marinescu" for Dental Materials- best book in Romania (1995). He completed his PhD thesis in 2000 entitled "Technological aspects concerning titanium prostheses making"; the first Romanian titanium-based dental prostheses were cast during the clinical part or the thesis preparation. Sorin is also Board Certified in the Advanced Education in General Dentistry program. He has attended continuing education courses or clinical stages in U.S.A., France, Liechtenstein, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. Sorin is married to Cora Uram-Tuculescu, and the father of Dorin (5). We welcome Sorin into our program here at UNC School of Dentistry.

Last modified: October 19, 2006