FORT LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – Nova Southeastern University’s Farquhar Honors College will welcome Mary Otto, Author and Oral Health Topic Leader, to campus on Tuesday, February 13, at 7 :00 p.m. in the Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center. She will also speak and meet with students as part of the college’s Distinguished Speakers Series.
Otto is the author of a new book, “Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America” (The New Press, March 2017) and has dedicated her career to highlighting the disparities in dental care for impoverished people in the U.S.
Now working as an independent journalist and oral health topic leader for the Missouri School of Journalism-based Association of Health Care Journalists, Otto began writing about oral health at the Washington Post, where she covered social issues, including health care and poverty.
She made a name for herself in 2007 after writing stories about Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Maryland child receiving Medicaid benefits, who died from complications of an untreated dental infection. Otto’s reporting spurred Congressional hearings, a revamping of Maryland’s Medicaid dental system, and increased attention to oral health access for poor children nationwide.
This event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required for attendance. They will be available to the public as of Monday, February 5, and can be picked up at the Farquhar Honors College Office of the Dean in the Mailman-Hollywood Building (second floor), Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., on NSU’s Fort Lauderdale/Davie campus. There is a limit of two tickets per person. For more information, call (954) 262-8236 or email dss@nova.edu.