Our Leadership

Steven W. Kess
Mark S. Wolff
Rabbi Kalman Samuels
Dr. Adine Usher

Barbie Vartanian

Steve Perlman

Rick Rader

Holli Seabury

Dr. Adine Usher

Robert Glickman

Jill Malmgren

Matilde Hernandez

Dr. Adine Usher

Advisory Board

Our Leadership

Steven W. Kess

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health
Vice President of Global Professional Relations, Office of the Chairman & CEO, Henry Schein, Inc.
Founding President of the Henry Schein Cares Foundation

Steven William Kess, M.B.A., is widely recognized for his critical insight and ability to synthesize public and private coalitions, as well as business and public policy issues. He is both an entrepreneur and an executive. Mr. Kess is Vice President of Global Professional Relations, Office of the Chairman & CEO, for Henry Schein, Inc., a Fortune 300 global health care distribution company, where he was instrumental in developing Henry Schein Cares, its corporate social responsibility program. Mr. Kess is the founding President of the Henry Schein Cares Foundation.

An advocate for underrepresented minorities, Mr. Kess has been particularly active in the area of diversity and access to health care for at risk populations. He has served in a variety of leadership roles in many health care associations, organizations, and trade associations. He currently is the Chairman of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Harvard University School of Dental Medicine and is President of the Dr. Edward B. Shils Entrepreneurial Fund, Inc. He serves on the Boards of The Forsyth Institute, Columbia University School of Dental Medicine, Tel Aviv University School of Dental Medicine, Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry, Alliance for Oral Health Across Borders, The University of Illinois at Chicago, and the American Medical Association Foundation.

In addition, Mr. Kess has served on the strategic planning group for the American Veterinary Medical Association Vision 2020 and FDI’s Vision 2020 Program Task Force for developing its strategic plan and defining the explanation of oral health.

Mark S. Wolff

Morton Amsterdam Dean (Effective July 1, 2018)
University of Pennsylvania
School of Dental Medicine

Dr. Mark S. Wolff is the Morton Amsterdam Dean at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. As senior academic officer, he helps lead the School to develop policy, set research agenda and design community treatment programs that serve the needs of a wide variety of patient populations. Prior to joining UPenn, Dr. Wolff was Professor and Chair of the Department of Cariology and Comprehensive Care and Associate Dean for Pre-doctoral Clinical Education and Associate Dean for Development and Alumni Relations at the New York University (NYU) College of dentistry, the largest dental education institution in the United States. At NYU Dentistry, he designed, developed, and implemented an extensive curriculum in caries risk assessment and also designed dental information systems to assist dental schools in monitoring the risk of the entire dental patient population. Dr. Wolff has completed numerous international research and oral health assessment programs. He has been a lifelong advocate and dental provider for individuals with physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities of all ages.

Dr. Wolff received his DDS degree and Ph.D. in Oral Biology and Pathology from Stony Brook University. He has served as the principal or co-principal investigator on multiple bench top and clinical research projects investigating dental caries, novel remineralizing agents, dental erosion, periodontal disease, dental materials, and dentinal hypersensitivity. He has published over 100 scientific papers, text chapters and edited multiple textbooks. Dr. Wolff lectures worldwide and is a frequent consultant to the industry. He has been the principal or co-principal investigator on nearly $1.0 million in industrial and National Institute of Health funded research. Prior to joining the NYU College of Dentistry in 2005, he served as Associate Dean at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, where he helped develop and implement the first completely computerized dental record. He frequently serves as a media source for information on consumer issues and hosts an annual radio series on dental issues on satellite radio.

Under Dr. Wolff’s direction, the Department of Cariology and Comprehensive Care integrated an extensive program of caries and health risk assessments, minimal intervention dentistry, tobacco cessation, evidence-based dental education, and dental care for all patients through the life-cycle, and inter-professional education across the entire NYU College of Dentistry curriculum.

Rabbi Kalman Samuels

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health
Founder and Chairman of Shalva
Kalman Samuels is the Founder of Shalva, The Israel Association for Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. Shalva provides therapy, vocational training, family support, and advocacy for members of the special needs community.

Rabbi Samuels was raised in a nonobservant Jewish home in Vancouver, Canada where he attended Sir Winston Churchill High School. Upon his graduation in 1969 he was given academic and basketball scholarships to the University of British Columbia. After his first year studying philosophy he traveled Europe with plans to undergo coursework in France. However, his mother requested that he stop in Israel to visit relatives. Enamored with Jewish culture and heritage, he cancelled the trip to France and enrolled in several Yeshivot, and in 1977 he received his rabbinical ordination.

In 1973 Rabbi Samuels married Malki Klein and the couple took up residence in Jerusalem. In 1977, their
second son, Yossi Samuels, at the time 11 months old, was injured by a faulty DPT vaccination and was rendered blind, deaf, and acutely hyperactive. After seven years with no communication, Yossi’s special education teacher, Shoshana Weinstock, achieved a breakthrough by relaying sign language into the palm of his hand, teaching Yossi his first word, “Shulchan”, meaning table.

Due to their experiences raising Yossi, Malki and Kalman established an afternoon playgroup for children with special needs. Over time, the program expanded to meet the needs of a broader spectrum of special needs, from birth through adulthood. Today, Shalva offers a constellation of therapy interventions, inclusive educational frameworks, social and recreational programs, and vocational training to hundreds of individuals with disabilities; as well as family support, respite, and global advocacy initiatives. In recognition of Shalva’s accomplishments and an ongoing need to expand the availability of special needs services, the Jerusalem Municipality provided the organization with a seven acre property adjacent to the planned Route 16 highway and the Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center in the Beit HaKerem neighborhood of Jerusalem. The new Shalva National Center is an international leader in the field of disability care, housing some of Israel’s largest and most advanced disability accessible facilities and offering unprecedented opportunities to people with disabilities in Israel. Rabbi Samuels has been the recipient of some of Israel’s most prestigious awards for service, leadership, and foundation excellence.

Dr. Adine Usher

Barbie Vartanian  

Executive Director, Project Accessible Oral Health  

Barbie Vartanian is the Executive Director of Project Accessible Oral Health, a global initiative focused on improving the health equity of the more than 61 million individuals living with a physical or intellectual disability.  

Prior to PAOH, Ms. Vartanian lead the Pacific Dental Services Foundation. She was instrumental in the development of a training program for dental professionals that focuses on improving the access and overall care for individuals with special needs.  

Barbie’s most important role is mother to her son with Autism.  She understands firsthand the barriers he faces and will continue to face throughout his life.  Once Sam was diagnosed, she knew she needed to do something more, to be his voice, his advocate, and his champion! 

Barbie also sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the NYU College of  

Dentistry Center for People with Disabilities Advisory Board, ECLC of New Jersey, Concorde Career College National Advisory Board, The Center for Oral Health, OPEN National Response Team on Disability and Inclusion, Rutgers Center for Innovation Education and multiple state  oral health coalitions and taskforces on disability and oral health. 

Dr. Adine Usher

Steve Perlman

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Dr. Steven Perlman is a Clinical Professor of Pediatric Dentistry at the Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine. For the past 40 years, he has devoted much of his private practice as well as his teaching, to the treatment of children and adults with physical and intellectual disabilities.

A past president of the Academy of Dentistry for Persons with Disabilities, the Massachusetts Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, and the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry, Dr. Perlman is also a Fellow of the Academy of Dentistry for Persons with Disabilities and the American College of Dentists and a Diplomate of the American Board of Special Care Dentistry.

Dr. Perlman is cofounder and past president of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry (AADMD), and in 2005 and 2006, he served as an advisor to the President’s Committee for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.

Dr. Adine Usher

Rick Rader

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Dr. Rick Rader is cross trained in internal medicine and medical anthropology and is the Director of the Habilitation Center at the Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. He is responsible for the identification, initiation, evaluation and disseminationof novel programs related to health care access and delivery to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the lifespan. He serves on the board of the Chattanooga Autism Consortium.

Dr. Rader is a founding member, past president and (currently) vice president for Public Policy and Advocacy at the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry (www.aadmd.org). He is responsible for writing the Academy’s policy papers on all issues relating to improving clinical outcomes for this at risk population.

For the past twenty three years he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Exceptional Parent Magazine and has published over 300 articles in the area of health and disability. Under his tutelage the magazine has won numerous awards in medical and health publishing and reporting.

Dr. Adine Usher

Holli Seabury

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Holli Seabury, EdD, is the Executive Director of the Delta Dental Foundation, which is dedicatedtooralhealthequityandadvancingdentalsciencethrougheducationandresearch.

From 2009 to 2019 Dr. Seabury was the CEO of McMillen Health, a nonprofit health education center servingover 90,000 annually. She was the lead curriculum developer for the Brush Oral Health Program, which serves over 1.85million children nationwide through Early Head Start/Head Start and WIC. Her work has focused on health literacy and developing educational materials for the Medicaid population, especially young families.

Dr. Seabury holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Defiance College. In 2015 she earned adoctorate in curriculum and instruction with a specialty in educational technology from the University of Florida.She lives in Lansing, Michiganand is married with seven children and threegrandchildren.

Dr. Adine Usher

Robert Glickman

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Coming Soon

Dr. Adine Usher

Jill Malmgren

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Jill Malmgren has been involved with America’s ToothFairysince its inception in 2006, when she began serving as a volunteer. Since 2011, she has served in roles such as Director of Marketing and Communications, Chief Operating Officer, and in 2016, was promoted to the Executive Director position. Prior to 2011,she was Director of Operations for Newport Coast Oral Facial Institute, a nonprofit state of the art training facility for dental professionals, and world renown dental practice, Sheets, Paquette & Wu Dental Practice. An author of several articles highlighting the importance of children’s oral health which have appeared in USA Today and major dental publications, Ms. Malmgren has also presented at the Annual Oral Health Alliance Symposium, International HOSA: Future Health Professionals Leadership Conference, Minnesota State University Dental Hygiene Department, and National Oral Health Conference Round tables. She has worked with youth, childcare providers, Head Start staff and teachers, nonprofit staff, dental students and professionals, and educators topromote the importance of oral health and its impact on overall systemic health and the populations they serve. She also championed campaigns to provide education and basic oral care products for several hundred thousand children each year. In addition toher role as Executive Director, she serves as Marketing Committee Chair and on the Advisory Board for Project Accessible Oral Health.

Dr. Adine Usher

Matilde Hernandez

Executive Committee, Project Accessible Oral Health

Matilde is a graduate of Central University of Venezuela, with 13 years of clinical practice experience as a dentist.She received both her Dentists Degree and Specialization as a Periodontist in Caracas Venezuela.

Matildeis currently the Clinical Research Manager of theInnovation team at the Global technology Center and works extensively with dental and dental hygiene CE programs throughout North America.

Matilde is an active member of the International Association of Dental Research, IAP, American Dental Association, American Academy of Periodontologyand Hispanic Dental Association Foundation Board member.