Dental Hygiene Prof Awarded Fulbright

Michele Darby, a longtime professor at Old Dominion and the author of two leading dental hygiene textbooks, will be a Fulbright Scholar next year at least partly because her students can’t seem to get enough of her teaching.

Several of Darby’s former students who are now faculty members themselves at the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) started the wheels in motion that resulted in their mentor winning a Fulbright appointment to their country. Darby is the graduate program director for the Gene W. Hirschfeld School of Dental Hygiene within ODU’s College of Health Sciences.

In 2006, Darby was invited by three of her former students to JUST in Irbid, Jordan, where she conducted seminars and did outreach work. Since then she has wanted to return to Jordan for the sort of extended professional interaction that the Fulbright Scholars Program makes possible. Her term will be from Jan. 1 to May 15, 2010.

She will teach courses for students and faculty, treat patients in clinical seminars, act as a curriculum consultant and train dentists to integrate dental hygienists into practices in order to offer more cost-effective care.

Darby, whose Fulbright proposal describes a high prevalence of preventable oral disease in Jordan, is well known for research in her field. Her book “Comprehensive Review of Dental Hygiene” is in its sixth edition.