2022 FELLOWS

Lawrence Gettleman

University of Louisville, School of Dentistry

For distinguished accomplishments and life-long dedication to science, as well as significant contributions to the Society’s mission and service to the Louisville chapter of Sigma Xi and beyond.

Sigma Xi Experience

Lawrence Gettleman joined Sigma Xi in the general chapter in New Orleans in 1986 while working at Gulf South Research Institute. He then joined the University of Louisville chapter in 1990. He was on the local program committee from the beginning and was president of the Louisville chapter in 1995-96 which he enlarged to attract other academic and industry members in the area.

He was instrumental in bringing the International Science and Engineering Fair to Louisville in 1997, with six Nobel Laureates attending to judge the finalists (a first). Laureate Dudley Herschbach attended Sigma Xi's annual meeting, and Marc Abrahams of the Annals of Improbable Research and the Ig Nobel Prize programs was the speaker that year. He assumed the position of Sigma Xi chapter treasurer in 1997 which he held until recently, acting as the “organizational memory” for the group to hold things together. He served on the national Sigma Xi Meetings Committee in 2005-07.

He has recruited judges for the two local regional science fairs and presented Sigma Xi Awards to the top students for many years. Winners were given certificates from Sigma Xi, a subscription to American Scientist, a check, and were invited to a local chapter meeting with their parents and science teachers.

Biography

Lawrence (Larry) Gettleman was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1940 and grew up on Miami Beach, Florida, graduating from Miami Beach High School in 1958. He was involved in school and regional fairs and attended the Florida State University science camp in 1957. He is an Eagle Scout and was a finalist and 4th place winner in physical sciences in the 1958 National Science Fair in Flint, Michigan.

He went to his father’s alma mater, Rutgers (B.A. psychology 1962), the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (D.M.D., 1966), and St. Louis University (M.S.D, 1968), the latter on an NIH training grant for post-doctoral dental specialty and research experience. He was recruited for an active-duty research position with the US Public Health Service in San Francisco in 1968 and returned to the Harvard faculty as assistant professor from 1971 to ‘76. He moved to the LSU School of Dentistry as associate professor of biomaterials and then Gulf South Research Institute (G.S.R.I.) in New Orleans, before joining the University of Louisville School of Dentistry faculty as professor of prosthodontics and biomaterials in 1990.

He has maintained private and faculty practices in restorative dentistry and prosthodontics, and has 82 research publications, 14 book chapters, 158 research abstracts, and 3 patents. A permanent resilient denture liner resulted from his time at G.S.R.I. using a polyphosphazene fluoroelastomer and was marketed in the US in 1989 as Novus® and is still in use in Europe. He has mentored 34 pre- and post-doctoral degree students and is a fellow of 4 honor societies. He has been a frequent reviewer for NIH study sections and scientific journals, and is on the editorial boards of several professional journals.

He has been the principal investigator of nine NIH-funded research grants, including a $2.9 million randomized, controlled, multicenter clinical trial in maxillofacial prosthetics using thermoplastic chlorinated polyethylene he helped to develop at G.S.R.I. in 2003-2009 at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre.

He received the President’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Community Service from the University of Louisville, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the Ryge-Mahler Award in Clinical Research from the Dental Materials Group of the International Association for Dental Research.

He is now professor emeritus of prosthodontics & biomaterials at the University of Louisville, School of Dentistry, and lives in Katy, Texas, closer to family members.

Community organizations in Louisville included the regional science fairs. He founded the Kentucky Science Fair Endowment after the 1997 ISEF he invited to Louisville ended with a profit, and has started several other endowment funds and scholarships. He was also board member of Kentucky Opera and Kentucky Shakespeare organizations, public radio, neighborhood improvement, preservation and historical associations, the Harvard Club of Louisville, Temple Shalom, and several automobile and flying clubs. Professional groups include many dental societies in biomaterials and prosthodontics, research societies such as Sigma Xi, and as an advisor to the Alpha Omega Dental Society’s student fraternity whose major fund raiser was the AO Handmakers booth at the St. James Court Art Show, making plaster hand sculptures of patrons from 2002 to 2019.

He has been married to Ricky for 59 years, has two children and five grandchildren.

2022 FELLOWS

Lawrence Gettleman

Sigma Xi Experience

Biography

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