The Educational Innovation Awards

By Greg King (PCSO/WA)

Dr. Greg King is the principle investigator on this planning grant. He has been in orthodontic academics for 37 years. He is a graduate of Brown University and Tufts Dental School. He received his orthodontic training at Harvard, where he also obtained a doctorate in oral biology. Greg has received numerous awards, including the Milo Hellman from the AAO and the Distinguished Craniofacial Scientist from the IADR.

Greg served as a department chair for 23 years, first at the University of Florida and later at the University of Washington. His research interests have involved translational research on tooth movement, root resorption and osteodistraction using animal models. In addition, he has conducted several clinical studies, most notably: two clinical trials, one on early treatment of Class II and the other on access to care for low-income children.

This Educational Innovation Award is aimed at planning for a nationwide mentoring network that would match junior orthodontic faculty with seasoned orthodontic educators. This planning grant will establish infrastructure designed to identify promising young orthodontic educators and to provide them with effective mentoring that is specific to their career goals, with the object of increasing the likelihood that they will succeed in their careers and remain in academics.

Orthodontic education will benefit directly from this initiative because severe shortages of qualified orthodontic educators exist today. We can ill-afford to loose any of them. In the past, efforts—mainly by the AAOF—to address this crisis have primarily focused on faculty development grants and postdoctoral fellowships, but other more innovative approaches need to be tried. Methods to guide junior orthodontic faculty through the multiple challenges they face in developing their careers have not been explored in any systematic way. In the absence of such timely mentoring, talented and motivated young orthodontists often leave promising academic careers.

This planning grant brings together 11 co-investigators from all areas of the country, with extensive experience in orthodontic education and considerable success in developing junior faculty. During the year, this group will identify issues related to career success in orthodontic education, write a document that would serve as a manual of procedures articulating the process for a mentoring network and establish leadership for the network.

The AAOF funding is important for this project because it provides the resources necessary to obtain "proof of principle" pilot data that can subsequently be used to seek wider funding for implementation of the network. Although the primary focus of the AAOF has been to support orthodontic education, faculty shortages exist widely in dental education today and trends are definitely not encouraging. Therefore, we anticipate that the success of this planning grant would have broad appeal to other potential funders.

As a department chair, I have had the opportunity to encourage many young orthodontists in their career development. The AAOF has always been there for us—providing direct financial support as well as funding for the scholarly activities that are necessary for academic success today.

If you would like to be a part of our future by planning a gift to support education and research in orthodontics, please contact AAO Foundation at 800.424.2841 or aaof@aaortho.org.