Pennsylvania is in the midst of a rural dental crisis. Pitt is ready to help.

Marnie Oakley’s path to becoming dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine began in the small town of Mountain Top, in northeastern Pennsylvania. As she split wood to help heat the family home, she learned the value of hard work, perseverance and the power of connection from her father, a Sears accountant, and her stay-at-home mother. She loved arts like sketching and painting as much as she loved science. Dentistry, she realized later, was a perfect balance of both.

As a teenager, Oakley (A&S ’89, DEN ’92) followed her brother, Matt LaVigna (CGS ’87), to Pitt, where he’d been recruited to play football. She studied biology as an undergraduate and completed her dental studies in 1992 before joining the U.S. Navy. Her first assignment as a naval dental officer was at Naval Station Great Lakes, where she saw a health need she hadn’t imagined: Recruits, barely out of high school, would tell her they had never seen a dentist. Many arrived with severe decay.

“I have never seen more need and dental disease in my entire life,” she says. Continue Reading.....

Pitt School of Dental Medicine Dean Marnie Oakley and her golden retriever, Steve, join health providers in greeting patients at a recent Mission of Mercy clinic in downtown Pittsburgh. Pitt Dental annually supports Mission of Mercy’s efforts to offer free dental, hearing and vision care to underserved populations. Photography by Tom Altany