Dr. Samuel Berkowitz, an orthodontist, was a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Surgery associated with the South Florida Craniofacial Anomalies Program at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He was also Adjunct Clinical Professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Dentistry – Orthodontic Department, and Adjunct Clinical Professor of Orthodontics at the University of Illinois College of Dentistry. His main goal is to develop teaching materials in cleft palate for professionals in plastic and oral surgery, orthodontics, and speech language pathology. He is a past President of the American Cleft Palate Association Educational Foundation, and the Florida Cleft Palate Association, and was President of the Miami Craniofacial Anomalies Foundation. Dr. Berkowitz was active in the American Association of Orthodontics, Florida Cleft Palate Association, and The Edward Angle Society of Orthodontists. He has published widely in medical and cleft palate journals and is the author of Volume I and the editor of Volume II of Cleft Lip and Palate Perspectives In Management – First Edition; he coauthored Plastic Surgery of the Facial Skeleton with S.A Wolfe, M.D, and wrote The Cleft Palate Story for parents of a child born with a cleft. Dr. Berkowitz is a popular speaker on cleft lip/palate topics and has presented many workshops and seminars in the USA and abroad.

His research interest focused on improving surgical-orthodontic treatment planning for cleft lip and palate children as well as those with other craniofacial anomalies. Dr. Berkowitz was project director of a clinical research program that was studying the long-term effects of various surgical treatment procedures on palatal and facial growth and development. He created a quantitative method for determining when to close the palatal cleft space, based on the 10% ratio of the cleft space to the area of the surrounding palatal surface medial to the alveolar ridges. He hascreated an audiovisual Power-Point lecture series for surgeons and orthodontists to enable them to better understand and teach others the effects of surgery on the face from birth through adolescence.

Dr. Berkowitz has been awarded the title “Honoree” by the Edward Angle Society of Orthodontists, and “Honoree” by the First World Congress of the International Lip and Palate Foundation for his many contributions to the field of cleft lip and palate treatment. His extensive serial clinical records of dental casts, lateral cephaloradiographs, facial and intraoral photographs, and panorexes are in the National Museum of Health and Medicine (associated with Walter Reed Hospital’s Institute of Pathology in Washington D.C), where they will be available for continued study.