In July, Dr. Ana Lucia Seminario (UW Department of Pediatric Dentistry) and Dr. Hai Zhang (UW Department of Restorative Dentistry) were invited to participate in the Campus Asia Plus Symposium & University Immersion Program (UIP) co-hosted by West China School of Stomatology, Sichuan University (China) and the Graduate School of Dentistry, Tohoku University (Japan).
The two-week UIP was initiated in 2012 in Chengdu, China where Sichuan University is located. This program aims to cultivate global awareness, cross-cultural competencies, and broader cultural understanding among dental students in the world. In this year’s program, students and faculty came from more than ten dental schools worldwide, including two schools from the US. Besides the UW, students and faculty from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) were also invited. Other dental schools were from Japan, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries.
This year’s program was held from July 1st to July 12th, 2024. The program included faculty lectures, students’ clinical skill competitions, as well as cultural exchange activities. Dr. Seminario gave a lecture entitled “Current Opportunities for Global Oral Health Research,” while Dr. Zhang’s lecture was focused on interdisciplinary graduate dental education. They both participated in the department seminars of their corresponding specialties.