Dr. Hannelore Loevy Taschini, a pediatric dentist who taught for more than four decades at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry and was also a dental historian, editor, and author, died March 24 in Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune. She was 81.
"She was a nationally recognized historian of the dental profession who preserved the history of women in our profession for posterity," Bruce Graham, the school's dean, said in a statement.
Dr. Loevy died of congestive heart failure at Montgomery Place, an assisted living facility in Hyde Park. She was a longtime resident of the South Side neighborhood.
"She was an educator and scholar whose dedication to pediatric dentistry lives on in the thousands of students whose careers in dentistry have been enhanced by her teachings," said Dr. Indru Punwani, head of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at UIC.
Dr. Loevy was editor of the Journal of the History of Dentistry from 1988 to 2005, and also was an editor of the Journal of Dentistry for Children.
She contributed more than 100 articles and abstracts to scientific journals, wrote the 1981 book "Dental Management of the Child Patient," which was published in English, German and Italian, and co-wrote "Dentistry on Stamps," which illustrated the significance of dentistry and medicine on postage stamps of various countries.
"She had a wonderfully curious mind that triggered so many of her interests," said Punwani, a longtime colleague of Dr. Loevy. "To sit and chat with her on any subject was as enjoyable as it was enlightening."
At UIC, Dr. Loevy taught in the anatomy department at the College of Medicine from 1963 to 1965, at its College of Pharmacy from 1968 to 1972 and at the pediatric dentistry department from 1972 until her retirement in 2006.
She also taught at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Northwestern University's colleges of dentistry and medicine.
Born Hannelore Loevy in Berlin, Dr. Loevy and her family fled to Sao Paulo when she was 6 in the face of the Holocaust.
Dr. Loevy received a dental degree from the University of Sao Paulo in 1952 and came to the U.S. and got a master's degree in pediatric dentistry from UIC in 1959. She received a doctorate in anatomy from UIC in 1961.
