AAP Honors to Oh and Pirih

Two faculty members in the Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine recently received major awards from the American Academy of Periodontics Foundation.

T.J. Oh was awarded the Bud and Linda Tarrson Fellowship, and Flavia Pirih was awarded the AAP's Educator Scholarship.

T.J. Oh

Oh, clinical associate professor, received the $30,000 Bud and Linda Tarrson Fellowship, a career development award for academic periodontologists. The fellowship was established to encourage gifted periodontal clinicians who have demonstrated teaching excellence to pursue an academic career.

Oh, who has been at the School of Dentistry since 1996, codirects the predoctoral implant program and directs the periodontal surgical therapy course. At the end of the course, he takes 8 to 10 third-year dental students, interested in specializing in periodontics, to an annual periodontal conference.

Previous recipients of the award from the School of Dentistry include Dr. William Giannobile and Dr. Keith Kirkwood.

Flavia Pirih

Pirih, a second-year resident, received the $50,000 Educator Scholarship that is awarded to a periodontal resident who wishes to pursue a full-time academic career in the U.S.

"Since the beginning of my dental education, I have enjoyed the biological aspects of dentistry, especially trying to understand the molecular mechanisms of oral and periodontal diseases, and then trying to use that information in devising treatment strategies for patients," she said.

Pirih earned a dental degree at Universidade Federal do Parana (Brazil) and later a PhD in oral biology at UCLA where she studied the role of primary response genes inducted by parathyroid hormones.