The Pennsylvania Dental Board presented Martin Tansy, Ph.D., dean of the Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry, with its Public Service Award on April 10 for his contributions to academic dentistry and physiology.

Throughout his 22-year tenure as dean, Tansy has brought the school from the brink of closure in 1986 to the busiest dental school clinic in the state. He has led the development of several urban and rural community-based oral health outreach programs, including the opening in 1988 of the first HIV/AIDS dental clinic in the mid-Atlantic region. Under his leadership, the school also opened clinics in the Roberto Clemente Middle School and in rural Pennsylvania, where patients often have a difficult time accessing care.

“I remember in the early days of my tenure, [former Temple President] Peter Liacouras stood next to me, and had me look out the window at Broad Street. ‘What you see there is the real world. This is what I want to see mirrored at the School of Dentistry,’ he said. It has always been our mission to take care of the public, whether in North Philadelphia or beyond.”

Over the past few years, the school has expanded its outreach even more, due in part to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to 11 dental schools across the country for the purpose of improving dental health in their surrounding communities. And with the creation of the Department of Dental Public Health Sciences in 2007, community service has become a graduation requirement for Temple’s dental students.

“We have graduated more than 2,400 young men and women during my tenure, all prepared to enter the practice of dentistry, confidently, competently and compassionately providing services to persons of every income level, race or ethnicity,” Tansy said.

At Kornberg, students and faculty see more than 100,000 patients a year; many either have no insurance or cannot be seen by private practices in the area.

“We are the oral health safety net for North Philadelphia, and I cannot guess where — or whether — these patients would have been treated if Temple had closed its doors in 1986,” Tansy said.

The state Dental Board presents the Public Service Award to an individual or group whose professional efforts are aimed at improving the oral health of Pennsylvania’s residents.