Lasting Impressions | Fall 2014

38 © LASTING IMPRESSIONS You can come home again. Jason Portnof did. This Nova Southeastern University College of Dental Medicine alumnus—class of 2002, only the second graduating class in the college’s 17 years—has built his career as a faculty member. Portnof, D.M.D., M.D., returned to the College of Dental Medicine (CDM) in 2013 as director of Pediatric Craniomaxillofacial Surgery and direc- tor of Predoctoral Oral Surgery. “There’s an energy level here at the College of Dental Medicine,” said Portnof, 37. “The students are excited about learning and they have an eagerness to learn, and that’s unique. I’ve worked at other institutions where that doesn’t exist, but it does here.” Portnof’s career has taken him from NSU to New York to Austra- lia and back to New York before returning to the CDM. He earned his M.D. from Cornell University, did his internship and residency in New York, and a fellowship in pediatric maxillofacial surgery and craniomaxillofacial surgery in Melbourne, Australia. “The more education the better,” he said. “In dental surgery, your training should go deeper and deeper. If there’s something additional to do, it’s in my personality to do it.” In his case, it was the sub-specialty he developed with his fellowship at the Royal Children’s Hospital of Melbourne. Yet after seven years of postgraduate training, it was the cutting-edge work being done at the College of Dental Medicine— for patients today and in research for the future—that helped lure him back. “We’re riding the front of the wave, bringing research from the bench top to patient treatment,” he said. Faculty Impressions Alumnus’ career brings him back to NSU. Jason Portnof, right, instructs Saili Ruiz, left, with Jordan Kaltman, his OMFS faculty colleague. by Arnie Rosenberg