Penn Dental Medicine Names New Board Chair, Members

 

Philadelphia – Penn Dental Medicine has named a new Chair of its Board of Advisors and welcomes two new Board members as well. Taking on the leadership role as Chair is Dr. David Shen (D’79, GD’81) and joining the Board is Ruchi Goel and Dr. Allen Finkelstein. All three appointments were officially approved by the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees at its June meeting.

Dr. David Shen

“I am honored to be serving Penn Dental Medicine in this capacity,” says Dr. Shen, who succeeds Dr. William Cheung (D’81, GD’82), who served as Chair since 2008. “I look forward to helping the School continue to build upon the many new initiatives undertaken over the past several years and engage the Board members in that process.”

Dr. Shen brings years of active engagement with the School to this new position. A member of the Board of Advisors since 2012, Dr. Shen has also served as Co-Chair of the Power of Penn Dental Medicine capital campaign. The campaign, which concluded with the close of the fiscal year on June 30, raised approximately $70 million for School facilities and programs.

A Penn Dental Medicine alumnus, Dr. Shen earned both his DMD and specialty certificate in orthodontics at the School. Over the past 30 years, he has built a successful private practice in San Francisco, currently serving as the President of the OrthoWorks Invisalign and Orthodontics Group, a full service provider of orthodontic services. The practice has three offices in San Francisco and eight additional locations in the region. OrthoWorks has served more than 60,000 orthodontic patients throughout the Bay Area.

Dr. Shen is a Fellow of the Academy of Dentistry International and founder of the Northern California Asian Dental Association, serving as President and Vice President. He is also a former Chairman of the Membership Committee of the San Mateo County Dental Society. Dr. Shen lectures internationally and also served as an Assistant Professor at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of California San Francisco from 1985 to 1990, where he taught second-year orthodontic residents.

Ruchi Goel

Bringing a depth of experience in business and finance to the Board is Ruchi Goel, whose career experience includes serving as an investment banker, finance executive, and venture capitalist within the technology industry. She has negotiated and executed over $2 billion in technology merger and acquisition transactions, and has managed teams and budgets of over $1 billion, while working for blue chip companies such as Goldman Sachs and Hewlett Packard. Ms. Goel recently led business development at Labo America, Inc. for its Labomed product line, a leading global brand of microscopes. She developed key partnerships for Labomed’s medical and dental operating microscopes, and currently serves on the company’s Board of Directors. Ms. Goel also worked at Labo America, Inc. on its Labomed product line, a leading global brand of microscopes for medical and dental offices, and currently serves on its Board of Directors.

Presently, Ms. Goel is a licensed real estate advisor with Compass. Her work in real estate includes residential real estate development and serving clients in their home sale or purchase.

She holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Allen Finkelstein

Also joining the Penn Dental Medicine Board of Advisors is Dr. Allen Finkelstein, CEO of Bedford HealthCare Solutions and the former Chief Dental Officer of AmeriChoice/United Health Group, which insures over 3.5 million individuals in dental coverage through CHIP/Medicaid. Dr. Finkelstein is active on a diversity of boards, serving on the New Jersey Dental Medicaid Advisory Committee; New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island Coalitions of Oral Health; the American Friends of the Hebrew University New York Advisory Board; the Children’s Health Project Board; and the Shils Entrepreneurial Education Fund of the American Dental Association (Vice Chairman), among others. A member of the New York Academy of Sciences, he is also a member of advisory board for Healthy Smiles-Healthy Families Oral Health for Children in California’s Healthy Families Program and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Children’s Dental Health Project, Washington, DC.

Dr. Finkelstein is a former Post Preventive Dental Officer at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, receiving the Army Commendation Medal for the Preventive Dental Program developed to reduce caries and emergencies for the U.S. Army Dental Corp during the Vietnam War. He also served on the forensic staff at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office after September 11th and currently is an advisor to the New York City Department of Health for the New York Cares Health Improvement Program.

A longtime proponent of integrated dental and medical care, Dr. Finkelstein has lectured widely on the subject of early childhood caries and the need for medical/dental integration to achieve the establishment of a quality outcome-based health home.

Dr. Finkelstein earned his DDS with honors from Temple University School of Dentistry in 1969 and was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the A.T. Still University (Hon) in 2009.