Having personally struggled with several eating disorders, I made these infographics in 2021 to highlight the bidirectional oral health implications of eating disorders and highlight ways for dental professionals to help. These infographics were featured on Harvard ASDA's official Instagram Page.
Advocacy and Service Projects
Initiatives as ASDA National Council on Advocacy Chair
In 2024-2025, I served as the Chair of the American Student Dental Association National Council on Advocacy, which represents the interests of dental students on legislative and regulatory issues that impact the dental profession. The council launches grassroots initiatives to promote action-oriented advocacy in support of dental students and the patients they serve.
Lobby Day Prep Webinar
-
Created a Lobby Day Prep Webinar and presented it across dental students nationally, which was redistributed and presented at the district level, covering topics such as:
-
1. Basics of Congress
2. ASDA lobbying victories
3. How lobbying impacts patient outcomes
4. How to be an effective lobbyist
5. Mock congressional meeting
Other Initiatives
Grassroots Initiatives
• Connections with Legislative Liaisons. Council members held orientation calls, sent emails, and communicated with leaders to share information, answer questions, and serve as a resource.
o Legislative coordinators scheduled quarterly virtual meetings with chapter legislative liaisons in their regions, named “Policy Huddles,” to share national advocacy updates and facilitate a space for conversations about local advocacy initiatives.
o The council created a Google Drive folder for Legislative Liaisons to access PowerPoint templates for events, advocacy event ideas, ASDA Advocacy and Molar Bear graphics, advocacy guides, and more.
National Initiatives
Legislative and Regulatory Issues
• The council determined ASDA’s support to sign onto 3 coalition letters regarding:
o Support for the Dental Faculty Loan Repayment Program
o Support for tax policies that directly benefit small business dental practices, dentists, and dental students
o Concerns with restructuring plans for the National Institutes of Health
o Concerns with the ruling in Food & Water Watch v. EPA, which ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to provide stricter regulations for community water fluoridation
• In addition, the council determined following bills to be displayed on ASDA Action noting ASDA’s support or monitoring status.
These included:
H.R. 1125 / S. 469 STUDENT Act, H.R. 1371 Student Loan Disclosure Transparency Act of 2023, H.R. 1731 LOAN Act, H.R. 1842 / S. 1004 Student Loan Tax Elimination Act, H.R. 4139 Student Loan Refinancing Act, H.R. 6077 POST GRAD Act, H.R. 1202 / S. 704 REDI Act-Deferring Student Loan Interest for Residents, S. 862 Restoring America’s Health Care Workforce and Readiness Act, S. 2172 Dental Loan Repayment Assistance Act of 2023, H.R. 590 / S. 109 Ensuring Kids Have Access to Medically Necessary Dental Care Act, H.R. 994 / S. 403 Oral Health Literacy and Awareness Act of 2023, H.R. 2410 VET CARE Act of 2023, H.R. 2413 Dental Care for Veterans Act, H.R. 2559 Strengthening Community Care Act of 2023, H.R. 3380 HEADs UP Act of 2023, H.R. 3701 Foster Youth Dental Act of 2023, H.R. 3843 Action for Dental Health Act of 2023, H.R. 1342 / S. 570 Medicaid Dental Benefit Act of 2023, H.R. 2569 DOC Act, S. 2402 Gateway to Careers Act of 2023, H.R. 1385 DOC Access Act of 2023, H.R. 1422 SMILED Act, H.R. 1671 Increasing Access to Dental Insurance Act, S. 1424 A bill to amend title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act to improve health care coverage under vision and dental plans, and for other purposes, H.R. 3633 PREVENT HPV Cancers Act of 2023.
Donut Forget to Vote
-
Spreadheaded a successful ASDA National Advocacy Initiative called “Donut Forget to Vote!”, a voter registration contest aimed at encouraging dental students across the country to register to vote.
-
Over 1,400 students participated, making it the largest turnout in any ASDA advocacy initiative to date.
-
-
Each dental chapter submitted the names of students who registered or were already registered to vote. Chapters competed to achieve highest percentage of registered voters. The top three chapters were awarded monetary prizes—$150 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third—and featured in the ASDA Advocacy Brief.
-
In addition to facilitating this contest, the Council on Advocacy developed:
-
Voting “How to Vote” guide to support student engagement and participation,
-
Voter Registration Drive Resources for Chapters.
-
-
Encouraged students to look up the platforms of their representatives via ASDA Action, a site that allows students search up their congressmen and see how they voted on key issues.
Barriers to Care
-
Worked with Council on Advocacy to develop infographic series talking about barriers to care, including financial, geographic, cultural, insurance, and oral health literacy barriers.
-
Created social media campaign collecting different dental students' submissions on barriers to care, what it means to them, and advocacy to address them.
Initiatives as ASDA District 2 Legislative Liaison
District 2 Advocacy Scholarship
Spearheaded first District 2 Advocacy Scholarship Program
-
This program ran from 2023-2024, open to dental students in New York and New Jersey. Designed a point-based application system to incentivize grassroots engagement, including events, legislator outreach, and social media advocacy. Award included Lobby Day attendance and a travel stipend.
This scholarship program's goal was to:
-
increase accessibility for attendance of advocacy events for students passionate and deeply involved in advocacy.
-
encourage creative ways for students to use the scholarship, such as hosting events, creating advocacy designs, and promoting advocacy on social media.
In 2025, put together a project proposal form to develop a district advocacy scholarship on the national level.
Public Health in Dentistry Panel
Organized a successful collaboration between ASDA and APHA (American Public Health Association) to host a Zoom panelist event highlighting different ways to get involved in public health, from private practice level to community to state to federal level. Total of 128 registrants and around 80 attendees.
Learning objectives for students:
-
Define different levels of advocacy and their relation to public health
-
Advocacy on a patient level
-
Advocacy on a community levet
-
Advocacy on a federal level
-
-
Understand different career pathways and ways to incorporate public health into their professional practice. (Examples: community health center, teaching/education in school, private practice, lobbying/policy, public health organization or state department)
-
Recognize opportunities to get involved in public health and advocacy right now (population oral health management) - every dentist’s job.
-
Examples: joining public health-focused organizations (APHA, NNOHA, AAPHD), educating patients, doing public health focused research, joining state dental organizations, attending lobby day events and bringing a public health focus to advocacy topics.
-
Advocacy Pre-Dental Fellow
-
Spearheaded Columbia ASDA initiative to recruit pre-dentals to work with our advocacy/ legislative committee to create infographics and raise awareness on dental advocacy topics and public health issues such as fluoridation, Medicaid, licensure, population based prevention strategies, and more! Here are past infographics designed by our fellows, posted on the Columbia ASDA instagram!
-
Our presentations on oral health advocacy topics:
-
Here is an example of a presentation we have used in the past to present to pre-dental societies!
-
This past fall, our advocacy committee, together with pre-dentals, presented "Advocacy 101" to pre-dental chapters including UMich, Hopkins, UPenn, Tufts, Cal Poly Pomona, UConn, Northeastern, UNO, Hunter, Indiana, UC-Irvine, NJIT, UOregon, Brown, and USF.
-
Initiatives as Brown Pre-dental Society President
Oral Health Education for Children
I started an initiative “Oral Health Education for Children” teaching local elementary schoolers about the importance of oral health, proper oral hygiene & dietary habits, and fluoride benefits through virtual games like kahoot and jeopardy. Concurrently, I was working with children and conducting research on praise at the Causality and Mind Lab. Praise is important in motivating children to maintain good oral hygiene and diet, so my research was informative in how I developed and delivered presentations to children.
Oral Health for the Elderly
In 2021, I spearheaded an initiative “Oral Health for the Ederly,” working together with the Oral Health Program at RI Department to provide oral hygiene training sessions to caretakers at nursing homes. Communicating with Dr. Zwethckenbaum, Director of RI Dept Oral Health, I worked on/revised a powerpoint on causes of gum disease & tooth decay, proper set-up and maintenance of teeth, dentures and partials, dealing with residents with dementia, parkinsons and paralysis, and identifying 10 types of oral pathologies. (worked with 46 nursing homes)
Links:
Powerpoint to train nursing staff
More About Me!
Music Compositions
Performed 5 times in Carnegie Hall, 2 times in the Metropolitan Museum, 2 times in McCarter Theatre
My Asian Identity
Reflections on what it means to be Asian American and my struggles with my identity
Subscribe to my Youtube Channel for more updates!
Follow me on Spotify!