Dentsply Sirona and AADOCR Announce Winners of the 2026 SCADA Awards

Dentsply Sirona and the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) congratulate the winners of the 2026 Student Competition for Advancing Dental Research and its Application (SCADA) Awards. The winners were recognized during the 55th Annual Meeting of AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 104th General Session & Exhibition of the IADR and 50th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on March 25-28, 2026 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. The 2026 competition brought together 61 outstanding dental students from across the U.S., along with seven international finalists from Canada, France, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, representing the next generation of dental research excellence. "Since its conception in 1959, Dentsply Sirona has proudly supported SCADA as an opportunity for pre-doctoral students to discover the importance of dental research," said Prof. Rainer Seeman, Vice President, Chief Clinical Officer at Dentsply Sirona. "We hope the competition inspires the next generation of dental researchers to build on this experience to discover new knowledge and innovations that benefit oral healthcare and the future of dentistry."

All participants received travel and accommodation support to attend the AADOCR Annual Meeting and were invited to present on Thursday, March 26, 2026. The winners were recognized for excellence in their abstract, presentation and subsequent question and answer session with the judges.

2026 SCADA Award Winning Projects

Clinical Research / Public Health Category

1^st - Edson DeSousa, Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Metabolic Syndrome and Dyslipidemia May Influence Periodontal Treatment Outcomes.

2^nd - Evan Heidenreich, Kansas City University. VR and Haptic Simulation in Teaching Dental Local Anesthetic Delivery.

3^rd - Alyssa Saltz, University of Kentucky. Guideline Adherence to Dental Opioid Prescribing Recommendations in Kentucky.

Basic and Translational Science Research Category

1^st - Elizabeth Leon, Nova Southeastern University. Porphyromonas gingivalis Vesicles Control Osteoclast-Macrophage Lineage Fate.

2^nd - Fatemeh Ebrahimi, University of Texas, School of Dentistry. Molecular Regulation of Facial Symmetry: Implications for Orofacial Cleft Pathogenesis.

3^rd - Hannah Herzog, University of California, San Francisco. Gut Microbiome Ablation with Antibiotics Attenuates Genetic Heterotopic Ossification.

"I am extremely grateful to Dentsply Sirona and AADOCR for the opportunity to attend the conference, present our research and meet students, clinicians, and researchers from all over the country and beyond," said Elizabeth Leon, first-place winner in the Basic and Translational Science Research category. "It was such a fun time in San Diego and an encouraging experience to pursue careers as research clinicians and share our passion for learning and discovery."

Edson DeSousa, first-place winner in the Clinical Research / Public Health category, remarked that, "It was truly an incredible and inspiring week. Being surrounded by so many passionate clinician-researchers and having the opportunity to present was an honor, and the experience has left a lasting impact on me. I feel even more motivated and encouraged to keep pursuing clinical research and academic dentistry. SCADA was such a meaningful reminder of why I chose this path, and I'm very grateful to have been part of it."

The winners were honored during an awards ceremony on March 25, 2026, at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel, with approximately 160 guests in attendance.

Inaugural AADOCR SCADA/Dentsply Sirona Research Award

Dr. Jacqueline Mays received the inaugural AADOCR SCADA/Dentsply Sirona Research Award during the Opening Ceremony of the Congress. Mays is a mucosal immunologist and clinical trials dentist whose research centers on chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) affecting the salivary glands and oral mucosa. She leads the Oral Immunobiology Unit within the Division of Intramural Research at NIDCR, holds the distinction of Lasker Clinical Research Scholar at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and directs the NIDCR Dental Clinical Research Fellowship program.

The new award was created to support dentist-scientists, including SCADA program alumni, in their research careers. The award supports early-stage dentist-scientists such as post-doctoral scholars and pre-tenure faculty members, with a long-term goal of increasing the number of successfully funded dentist-scientists at the higher ranks in science and academia in the fields of dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) biology. The award is supported by a generous donation from the SCADA Alumni Association with matching funds from AADOCR.

"We are so proud to support aspiring dental researchers and dentist-scientists early in their careers and to have given them the opportunity to present their projects and build new connections," said Dr. Effie Ioannidou, President of the AADOCR. "Scientific discovery in the field of oral healthcare is a noble pursuit and critical to improving dentistry and outcomes for patients in the future."

To learn more about SCADA, please visit: https://www.aadocr.org/awards/student-competition-advancing-dental-research-and-its-application-scada