Assistant/Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry

Position Overview

Course Responsibilities And Handoff Timeline

Key Responsibilities

Required Qualifications

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

Evaluation and Promotion

The Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC seeks qualified applicants for a full-time, clinical track position at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry in the Department of Distance Learning & Telehealth.

• Primary responsibilities will include assignments on projects involving teaching modules and didactic training modules exclusively designed for the Online Program, including the Orofacial Pain and Oral Medicine Master, the Orofacial Pain Certificate, the Oral Pathology and Radiology Certificate, and the Community Oral Health and Geriatric Dentistry programs.

Course Responsibilities And Handoff Timeline

• OFPM #707 Pharmacology (Online): Full transfer by end of Year 2. Online asynchronous, ~23 students, 15 weekly lectures plus VP final.

• DPDH #701 Pharmacology (Onsite): Full transfer by end of Year 2. Onsite, ~31 advanced-education students, 12 weekly lectures plus VP final.

• OFPM #706 TMD & Orthopedics: Full transfer by end of Year 3. Online, ~20 students, 15 weekly lectures plus VP final.

• OFPM #730 Video Case Conferences: Assume 1–2 sections in Year 1, up to 3 of 4 by Year 3. Four small-group sections, 8–10 students each, 2 hrs/week, 8:1 ratio.

• Pre-Clinic Resident Rounds: Co-lead in Year 2; co-lead with Dr. Vistoso by Year 3. Three 1-hour Zoom sessions per week with residents and rotating DDS students.

• Neurogenic Pain #705, Neuroscience #721, Psychology #724, Sleep and Motor Disorders #723: Full transfer by end of Year 3. All online, trimester-based.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as lead instructor for transferred courses, delivering 12–15 weekly asynchronous lectures per course per trimester, running discussion boards, and administering VP-AI-based final examinations.

• Deliver weekly #730 small-group video case conferences (2 hours per section, 8:1 ratio), supporting student case presentations and providing live critique.

• Maintain and update course shells each trimester to reflect current evidence and technology integrations.

• Author new VP-AI cases and pilot-test each case to validate AI scoring accuracy, feedback quality, and analytics for high-stakes final examinations.

• Contribute to AI decision-making documentation for transparency, continuous improvement, and accreditation.

• Provide onsite clinical supervision of OFP residents and DDS rotation students in the OFP/OM clinic alongside Dr. Vistoso and Dr. Padilla.

• Co-lead pre-clinic Zoom rounds (three times per week) with residents and rotating DDS students.

• See patients in the OFP/OM clinic, including the Medi-Cal population, and document encounters in the SmartNote EHR.

• Support students through IRB submission, analysis, writing, and oral defense.

• Proctor AI VP final examinations each trimester, including Zoom-based authentication and coordination.

• Curate approximately 50 new teaching cases per trimester drawn from the clinic’s 3,000+ case database.

• Contribute to the program’s national presence through publications, conference presentations, and consultation.

• Participate in ongoing refinement of the AI agent stack (RA-AI, TA-AI, VP-AI) in collaboration with the distance-learning team.

• Participate in admissions review, student progress monitoring, remediation, and final assessment decisions.

• Contribute to program-level review, accreditation documentation, and dean-level reporting for the OFP/OM portfolio.

• Participate in division, school, and relevant professional-society committees appropriate to rank.

Required Qualifications

• A D.D.S. or D.M.D. degree from an accredited institution.

• Advanced formal training in Orofacial Pain (residency, fellowship, or equivalent).

• California dental licensure or eligibility, to be obtained within a reasonable period after hire.

• Diplomate status with the American Board of Orofacial Pain (ABOP), or active candidacy with a clear timeline to certification.

• MS, PhD, or equivalent research-oriented advanced degree in addition to the DDS/DMD.

• Experience designing and delivering online or hybrid didactic content at scale, including asynchronous lecture authoring, LMS-based course shell management, and competency-based assessment.

• Experience with small-group case-conference teaching and virtual-patient or standardized-patient assessment methodology.

• Comfort working with AI-enhanced assessment tools and interest in contributing to case authoring, pilot testing, and validation for a VP-AI system.

• Familiarity with Oral Medicine content sufficient to cross-cover shared didactic content with the Oral Medicine faculty.

• Comfort teaching pharmacology, neuroscience, and sleep medicine as they apply to head, neck, and oral disease.

• Experience mentoring graduate or resident capstone and thesis projects.

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

• Teaching effectively in both clinical and didactic settings with clear, organized communication in synchronous and asynchronous formats.

• Working collaboratively in a team-based academic and clinical environment.

• Mastery of the VP-AI and case-conference systems.

• Progress against the three-year handoff milestones.

Evaluation and Promotion

• Annual review will be conducted by the Program Director in accordance with Herman Ostrow and USC clinical-track policies.

• Evaluation criteria include teaching effectiveness (student evaluations, peer observation, and module-level outcome data), clinical performance, scholarly contributions, demonstrated mastery of the VP-AI and case-conference systems, and progress against the three-year handoff milestones.

• The incumbent is expected to be a competitive candidate for promotion to Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry on the standard clinical-track timeline.