Vesna Ferrer and Shankar Rengasamy Venugopalan, assistant clinical professors at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry, both received 2017 awards from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation.

Each of these awards provides $20,000 to carry out four developmental plans in the areas of education, teaching skills, clinical skills and research. Ferrer is the recipient of the 2017 Michael Matlof Memorial Orthodontic Faculty Development Fellowship Award and her research project is “Curriculum content in clinical skills development in orthodontics for predoctoral and advanced education programs.” Ferrer is working with Associate Dean Cindy Amyot and Assistant Research Professor Chris Van Ness on this project. Rengasamy Venugopalan is the recipient of the 2017 Robert E. Binder Orthodontic Faculty Development Award and his research project is “Genomic analyses in ameloblastoma.” Rengasamy Venugopalan is working with Professor Craig Whitt on this project.

Dr. Ferrer

Ferrer also was selected for a 2017 scholarship from the American Association of Orthodontists to participate in a two-part Academy of Academic Leadership Program. Ferrer was one of four orthodontic faculty from the U.S. and Canada sponsored this year for this program.

Dr. Venugopalan

Rengasamy Venugopalan also has been selected to participate in the 2017 US Bone & Joint Initiative/Bone & Joint Canada – Young Investigators Initiative – Grant Mentoring and Career Development Program. This will involve two workshops to aid research proposal development leading to a grant application submission. Rengasamy Venugopalan will work with Professor Mark Johnson and other assigned mentors in this enrichment program.