CDM Alumna Adele Della Torre Honored with Betty Hubbard Maternal and Child Health Leadership Award

Columbia University College of Dental Medicine alumna Adele Della Torre, DDS’81, has been named a recipient of the Betty Hubbard Maternal and Child Health Leadership Award, a statewide honor presented by the Minnesota Department of Health, recognizing individuals whose work has made a lasting impact on the health

and well-being of women and children.
Dr. Della Torre received the award for her leadership in expanding access to oral health care for underserved children through Ready, Set, Smile, the nonprofit organization she founded to deliver preventive and minimally invasive dental services directly in schools. The award celebrates leaders whose work advances health equity through innovation, collaboration, and community-based solutions.

Turning Advocacy Into Action

Della Torre established Ready, Set, Smile as a reflection of her broader commitment to service and advocacy. Partnering with organizations such as Catholic Charities, she became trained as a community advocate and organizer. Her work extended beyond health care, addressing issues including affordable housing, homelessness, and social justice.
Through this advocacy, she began to see a troubling and consistent pattern.
“I would meet people who were articulate, working hard, raising families—and their oral health was often in very poor condition,” she said. “It became clear that there were barriers far beyond individual behavior.”
Those experiences were reinforced through her involvement in large-scale community service events, including multi-day clinics serving people experiencing homelessness. Dental services, she observed, were consistently among the most in-demand offerings.
“That was a turning point,” Dr. Della Torre said. “I realized that if I was going to do this kind of work, I needed to focus it on my own profession.”

Building a New Model of Care

At the same time, broader policy changes were reshaping the landscape of dental care. Minnesota became the first state to license dental therapists, and national conversations around preventive care intensified with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Together, these developments helped inform Dr. Della Torre’s vision for Ready, Set, Smile.
Della Torre says that the principle behind Ready, Set, Smile is that oral healthcare should be accessible, non-threatening, and embedded in children’s daily environments. Ready Set Smile brings care directly into schools and focuses on minimally invasive dentistry, using techniques that avoid drills and needles while still effectively treating cavities and preventing disease.
Ready, Set, Smile now 49 schools across the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area, reaching thousands of children who might otherwise go without dental care. The organization also tracks outcomes using data protocols developed in collaboration with academic partners, demonstrating significant reductions in active decay and measurable improvements in oral health.
“We know this model works,” Dr. Della Torre said. “And we know it works because we collect the data and see the outcomes in real time.”

Recognition That Amplifies Impact

For Dr. Della Torre, the Betty Hubbard Award is less about personal recognition and more about visibility for the work itself.
“The award helps draw attention to what Ready, Set, Smile does,” she said. “It gives us a platform to talk about solutions—and to invite others in the profession to think differently about access.”
She sees a natural alignment between her work and Columbia Dental Medicine’s longstanding commitment to community engagement, including its mobile dental programs serving schools and community sites in Washington Heights and Harlem.
“We talk a lot about lack of access and the challenges of reimbursement,” she said. “Those challenges are real, but this issue belongs to us as a profession. And there are solutions if we’re willing to think outside the box.”

Continuing a Legacy of Service

Dr. Della Torre remains deeply engaged in education and advocacy, frequently speaking with students and faculty about community-based care models and oral health equity. Her work reflects a career shaped not only by clinical excellence, but by a belief that dentistry can—and should—play a broader role in advancing public health.
Through Ready, Set, Smile, and now through the recognition of the Betty Hubbard Maternal and Child Health Leadership Award, Dr. Della Torre continues to demonstrate how dental professionals can lead meaningful, systemic change—improving lives one community at a time.