
Ajay qualified from WITS with a BDS degree in 1999, receiving the Julius Staz Prize in Oral Pathology, the PROSSA Prize in Clinical Fixed Prosthodontics and the Gold Medal of the WITS Dental Graduates Association (DGA) for the graduate with the best academic record in the final year of study. This was followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Dentistry (with distinction) from the University of Pretoria in 2004. He obtained his MSc (Dent) degree from WITS in 2007, in which his research report was awarded with distinction.
He was a part-time instructor in the undergraduate Orthodontic and the Cleft Lip and Palate Clinics in the Department of Orthodontics at WITS from 1999 -2006 before accepting a post as a registrar in the Department of Orthodontics at WITS from 2006-2010. He qualified as a specialist orthodontist in 2010, obtaining his MDent (Orthodontics) degree from WITS and later that year, sat for and obtained his Fellowship in Orthodontics (FCD SA Orthod) from the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry of South Africa.
He has received research and travel grants from the WITS Orthodontic Department, the WITS Faculty of Health Sciences and the DDF/RED Fund of the South African Dental Association (SADA).
He was awarded the Colgate Prize for the best research paper by a member under the age of 35 years at the annual Scientific Meeting of SA Division of the IADR in 2008 and represented South Africa for the Hatton Awards at the Annual Session of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) in Miami, Florida in 2009.
He was a consultant in the Postgraduate Division of the Department of Orthodontics at WITS from 2010-2013, a past-member of the IADR and an active member of SADA, SASO, the American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) and the World Federation of Orthodontists (WFO). He was a previous Secretary of SASO, the Imediate Past-Chair of the Ethics, RVU and Fees Committee of SASO and SASO’s representative on the Dental Practice Committee of SADA, previously a Trustee and currently a Director of the Gerald Gavron Reserve Fund (GGRF) of SASO. Ajay is the current President of SASO.
His scientific publications include ‘A method of assessing facial profile attractiveness and its application in comparing the aesthetic preferences of two samples of South Africans’ published in the June 2011 edition of the international journal, the Journal of Orthodontics (JO) which was the featured article on the front cover of the issue and ‘Do age and ethnicity play a role in the perception of facial profile attractiveness? A cross-sectional investigation’ published in the August 2012 Feschscrift edition of the South African Dental Journal (SADJ).
He has done oral, audiovisual and poster presentations as well as skills transfer workshops at the SASO annual orthodontic conference in 2008, the SA Division of the IADR conferences in Cape Town (2008) and Johannesburg (2012), the International Conference of the IADR, Miami, Florida (2009), the Private Practitioners Speech Therapy and Audiology study group (2020), the SASO webinar lecture series for orthodontic registrars (2022) and the SADA webinar panel discussion on current controversies in orthodontics: an evidence-based perspective (2022).
He has been a past referee and reviewer for the local journal, the South African Dental Journal (SADJ) and the international journal, The Angle Orthodontist.
Ajay is in full-time private practice in the leafy suburb of Parkwood, within walking distance of the Gautrain Station in the bustling node of Rosebank.
In his limited free time when he is not at his practice, or attending to his various orthodontic duties and responsibilities for SASO or raising his two children, he dreams of being able to get the better of his saxophone when he grows up……
