Rita May

Rita is the founder of May Consulting, Inc., a company that serves select companies with interest in oral health and disease prevention. Her clients include major confectionery and ingredient companies, as well as other companies that develop products in the oral public health and prevention arena. Her firm was instrumental in the introduction of xylitol in the US, including early adoption by the US Armed Forces. Rita developed and implemented the first landmark International Conference on Novel Anti-Caries and Remineralizing Agents (ICNARA), which convened in January 2008 in Vina del Mar, Chile. This led to ICNARA 2 held in Chile in 2012 and in 2017 the third of the series, ICNARA 3, was held in Napa, CA. The proceedings of ICNARA meetings are published as special editions of Advances in Dental Research. Rita has served as the executive director of the Council on Biomedical Research and Development at the New York Academy of Medicine, the Oral Health Education Foundation, the Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation, and managed the American Surgical Association (ASA) while working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Rita was elected to the faculty of Universidad Finis Terrae (Santiago, Chile) School of Dentistry as Professor for Research and Development in June 2012 and holds an adjunct professorship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She earned her BA degree from the University of Michigan and her M.Ed. in Organization Development and Institutional Studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, specializing in medical education.