An interview with Rodrigo F. Viecilli

Dental Press J Orthod. 2016 Sept-Oct;21(5):26-38 26 How to cite this interview: Viecilli RF. An interview with Rodrigo F. Viecilli. Dental Press J Orthod. 2016 Sept-Oct;21(5):26-38. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2177-6709.21.5.026-038.int Submitted: February 07, 2016 Revised and accepted: February 22, 2016 Early in the 2000, digital communication brought me a new friend. We haven’t studied together or been presented by any common friends. Along lines and lines of conversation, I met a young orthodontist from Canoas/RS, who even without having studied in one of the traditional Mechanics schools in Brazil, knew it deeply. Over time, I learned his story; he had studied Engineering and, motivated by his parents, graduated in Dentistry and took specialization in Orthodontics. The thirst for knowledge led him to, by his own, contact Dr Charles Burstone, who, by the time, got impressed and invited him to take Masters in Orthodontics and PhD in the USA, being one of the first Brazilian orthodontists with this title from an American university. Besides being awarded with the doctor of philosophy degree, by the Indiana University, he was also the first Brazilian to receive one of the most important award from the American Association of Orthodontics, in 2009. For his paper “Orthodontic mechanotransduction and the role of the P2X7 receptor”, he received the Milo Hellman Award, granted to the best research of the year in the USA. Since then, he has been lecturing almost every year in the American Association of Orthodontics Annual Session, presenting 6 lectures in 7 years of congresses. He was professor of Orthodontics in the New York University and, recently, was hired by Loma Linda University, where he teaches full time and is responsible for the Biomechanics lab. He is diplomate by the American Board of Orthodontics, and in his free time he cooks and reads about philosophy. It is a great honor for me to have this opportunity to coordinate the interview with one of the great personalities of the Brazilian Orthodontics in the USA: My friend, Dr Rodrigo Viecilli.