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Teaching Fellowships

 
Two $25,000 fellowships are awarded annually to provide debt relief for early-career periodontal educators committed to a career in academia.

Full-time faculty are the backbone of the dental professional educational process, bearing responsibility for predoctoral and postdoctoral periodontal education. The recruitment and retention of full-time faculty is one of the most pressing problems facing periodontal
education. The Teaching Fellowships were first established to address this concern by a major grant to the AAP Foundation by the American Academy of Periodontology, whose members continue to support it through their unrestricted support and gifts to the Education Action Fund. These Fellowships are intended to underwrite educational debt relief for young periodontal faculty. The award is not intended to replace support that would normally have been provided by the recipient's institution.

Eligibility

Applicants must be in their first three years of full-time teaching (as defined by the institution) or have accepted a full-time faculty position at an accredited U.S. dental school.

Fellows must be teaching periodontology, whether at the predoctoral or postdoctoral level. Educators may receive only one fellowship from the AAP Foundation including the Teaching Fellowships, Nevins and Nevins BioHorizons Fellowships, and Tarrson Fellowships. Immediate family members of the AAP Foundation Board of Directors, officers, and selection committee members are not eligible to apply.

Application and Selection Procedure

Recipients are selected by an award committee appointed by the AAP Foundation president. Finalists are required to attend a personal interview with the selection committee, conducted via videoconference.
  • Application Deadline
    June 1, 2027
  • Payment Schedule
    Fellows are paid in $5,000 installments over five years, in February of each year of full-time teaching. Fellowship payments are taxable income.
  • Founded
    2006
“The Teaching Fellowship was instrumental to establish my position as director of predoctoral periodontology, when I was the youngest and the most junior faculty in my department.”
Amanda Finger Stadler,
University of North Carolina
2025 – Teaching Fellowships
Donor

AAP Foundation Members

The AAP Foundation is grateful to the American Academy of Periodontology and the thousands of members whose ongoing unrestricted support has made these awards possible.

Selection Committee

  • Praveen Gajendrareddy
  • Adam Leitzan
  • Jennifer L. Bain
  • Sukirth Ganesan
  • Sivaraman Prakasam

Recipients

2026
Mahmoud Elashiry, Augusta University
2026
Angeliki Polymeri, Harvard University
2025
Sahar Dowlatshahi, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
2025
Amanda Finger Stadler, University of North Carolina
2024
Martinna Bertolini, University of Pittsburgh
2024
Vinayak M. Joshi, Louisiana State University Health New Orleans
2023
Rafael Siqueira, Virginia Commonwealth University
2023
Adam Lietzan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2022
Daniel Clark, University of Pittsburgh
2022
Matthew Mason, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2021
Ahmed Refaat El-Awady, Augusta University
2021
Megumi A. Williamson, University of Iowa
2020
Seyed Hossein Bassir, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2020
Sukirth Ganesan, University of Iowa
2019
Yu-Cheng Chang, University of Pennsylvania
2019
Zachary P. Evans, Medical University of South Carolina
2018
Guo-Hao Lin, University of California, San Francisco
2018
Vivek Thumbigere Math, University of Maryland
2017
Chun-Teh Lee, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
2017
Srinivas Myneni, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2016
Georgios Kotsakis, University of Minnesota
2016
Abhiram Maddi, University at Buffalo
2015
Jennifer L. Bain, University of Mississippi Medical Center
2015
Roger Arce, Georgia Regents University
2014
Zhao Lin, Virginia Commonwealth University
2014
Julio A. Carrion, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2013
Sivaraman Prakasam, Indiana University
2013
Thiago Morelli, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2012
Guy Huynh-Ba, University of Texas San Antonio
2012
Saba Khan, University of Illinois
2011
Gustavo Avila-Ortiz, University of Iowa
2011
Praveen Gajendrareddy, University of Illinois
2010
Luciana Shaddox, University of Florida
2009
Maria Geisinger, University of Alabama
2008
Paula Weistroffer, University of Iowa
2008
Matthew Byarlay, University of Nebraska
2008
Giuseppe Intini, Harvard University
2007
Mark Lucas, University of Colorado
2007
Dana Wolf, Columbia University
2006
Mohanad Al-Sabbagh, University of Kentucky
2006
David Kim, Harvard University