Dr. Kalu U. Ogbureke (center) is a King James IV Professor for 2016. Also pictured: Dean William Saunders and Vice Dean Sarah Manton, Faculty of Dental Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Kalu U. Ogbureke, BDS, DMSc, JD, of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Dentistry, has been named a King James IV Professor for 2016 by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in the U.K. He is the first person of African descent to receive the prestigious award, which is presented annually “in open competition to practitioners of surgery or dental surgery who have made a significant contribution to the clinical and/or scientific basis of surgery.”

Ogbureke delivered the 2016 King James IV Professorship lecture and formally received the award April 22 at the annual meeting of the British Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology in Edinburgh, Scotland.

UTHealth School of Dentistry Dean John A. Valenza, DDS, said the honor is well deserved. “This award affirms to so many others what we here at UTSD have known since Dr. Ogbureke’s return to the School of Dentistry -- and that is his tremendous contribution to the clinical and biomedical sciences in dentistry,” Valenza said. “We are all most proud of him and this recognition.”

Ogbureke joined the UTHealth School of Dentistry faculty in October 2012 and currently serves as chair of the Department of Diagnostic and Biomedical Sciences and professor of oral, maxillofacial, head and neck pathology at the School of Dentistry, as well as professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UTHealth McGovern Medical School.

By Rhonda Whitmeyer

curled from The University of Texas School of Dentistry USTD e Flash