40 Under 40: Dahlia Levine

Dahlia Levine has a deep-rooted love of dentistry.

“Growing up, my neighbor was actually my dentist, Dr. David Frankel. He was just the fun, kindest person ever — the guy with the pickup truck who would drive us all around in the pickup truck, he gave out candy at schul.”

“I was probably that weird kid who when I was 8 years old, if you had asked me, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up,’ I would’ve said ‘a dentist!’”

She volunteered at the JF&CS-operated Ben Massell clinic starting as an undergrad and later did a rotation there in her third year of Dental school. She made a point post-graduation to start going one Friday a month — and became even more involved after COVID began, as most older doctors stopped coming for safety reasons. She now serves on the Board of Directors.

“It really is one of the few places that as a student you really get hands on experience, and I also saw what an important thing they were doing. Dentistry is objectively very expensive, and there’s a lot of barriers for people getting the care that they need, and the people there were just so thankful and gracious to just have access to care, so that really resonated with me.”

Other parts of her dental advocacy once primed her for helping save a life. Having started a nonprofit in dental school called “cope with cancer,” dealing with the dental side effects of treating the disease, she was primed to recognize a tumor in the mouth of a patient. She teared up when talking about him.

“This guy had two young kids, and truly if he had waited four months, he would’ve been dead. But he came through the other side and was able to see his kids grow up.

Her full accolades in dentistry are too long to list here, but whether mentoring students as a member of the adjunct faculty of the Dental College of Georgia, or coming through no matter what for patients in her private practice, Decatur Family Dental (including once despite a broken nose), Levine remains dedicated to her passion and the people she serves.