Seeking undergraduate and graduate students to investigate the following with an interdisciplinary and interprofessional team – a partnership between Departments of Oral Surgery, School of Dentistry, and Department of Orthopedics, School of Medicine.

1. Temporomandibular biomechanics in “normal” and patients with temporomandibular discectomies in collaboration with Physical Therapy Human Motion Capture, Department of Orthopedics, School of Medicine, UCSF.
   1. Students will learn OpenSim, Visual 3D and other biomechanics software, and its use on data collected using optical tracking in the human motion capture at Mission Bay campus.
2. Temporomandibular joint spacing and physicochemical characterization of human temporomandibular discs from patients with severe TMJ disorders in collaboration with Department of Oral Surgery, School of Dentistry, UCSF and the Dental Department at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. 
   1. Students will learn to navigate their way through MRI and X-ray CT scans of patients and will learn to correlate these measurements with physicochemical properties of the temporomandibular discs from the same patients). This will also include development of novel Ultrasound Imaging and Analysis platform. 
3. Effect of soft and hard chewing on TMJ spacing in collaboration with Department of Oral Surgery, School of Dentistry, and Department of Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, UCSF
   1. Students will learn to implement interprofessional methods to solve complex biomechanics affected by disease and surgical procedures.