The Pineapple Pizza team from Otago’s Faculty of Dentistry won this year’s Australasian Postgraduate Orthodontic Quiz Championship. They are, from left, Chris Mo, Neeraj Anand, Olivia Jones, Woody Wu, Amir Hatami, Daniel Sim, Professor Martyn Cobourne, Yen Tran, Alan Yang, Amal Ajamain, Desmond Cheong, and Daniel Waller.
A team of postgraduate orthodontic students from the University of Otago beat five Australian universities to win this year’s Australasian Postgraduate Orthodontic Quiz Challenge.
The Challenge is held every second year at the Australasian Postgraduate Orthodontic meeting and involves teams from a variety of universities battling it out for the top spot.
Hosted by Professor Martyn Cobourne, from King’s College in London, the quiz consists of six rounds of questions which cover a broad spectrum of theoretical and clinical orthodontic knowledge. This year’s challenge featured competitors from the University of Otago, Melbourne, Western Australia, Adelaide, Queensland and Sydney.
Woody Wu was a member of the Otago team nicknamed “The Pineapple Pizza” as a playful tribute to their Italian professor, Mauro Farella.
“It was a fun and rewarding experience to work as a team, test our knowledge, and compete against other universities,” Woody says.
“I felt genuinely proud of how we collaborated and trusted one another and that teamwork paid off in the end.”
The winning team of each of the six rounds was awarded an assortment of English cookies which Woody says “were truly delicious” and inspired an intense but friendly competition between the tauira.
“By the end of the six rounds, we were tied with another university and so a tie-breaker question was posed with our team coming out on top.”
Woody says they felt elated and proud to win the competition as it served as validation for the high-quality nature of the orthodontic programme they are currently completing Otago.
The quiz was a highlight of their trip to Hobart, though the students also found it to be a fantastic opportunity to connect with other orthodontic postgraduate students from across Australasia.
Head of the Postgraduate Programme in Orthodontics, Professor Mauro Farella, says this achievement showcases what can be accomplished when talented students are supported by an engaged and passionate mentoring team.
“This victory brings pride to the Faculty of Dentistry, reflecting the high calibre of Otago’s postgraduate orthodontic students, and the dedication of their mentoring group,” Mauro says.
- Kōrero by the Division of Health Sciences Communications Adviser, Kelsey Swart.
Orthodontics at Otago
Orthodontics is one of seven academic disciplines within the Department of Oral Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry. It has a long tradition of excellence as the only academic provider of education in orthodontics in New Zealand.
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