Dr. Luciana Shaddox has been named associate dean for research at the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry (UKCD), effective July 1, 2019. 

As associate dean for research, Shaddox will be responsible for providing strategic leadership to help develop and facilitate new research and new research collaborative teams within and outside UKCD. 

“I am both humbled and honored by the opportunity given to me to lead the college’s research efforts. I hope to develop a vision of team research in a supportive environment. I believe the future of successful research lies in building collaborative efforts toward meaningful clinical translational science in order to answer the most fundamental questions surrounding oral health and craniofacial conditions. We have so many talented people here and around us. I am positive we can create great things together,” shares Shaddox. “I hope to motivate research “minds” within the college to help build the necessary steps toward such collaborative initiatives, as well as important supportive strategies to boost research forward, toward national and international recognition, no matter how many steps it takes!” 

Shaddox will continue her role as a professor in the Division of Periodontology at UKCD, as well as her own research, an intense clinical translational research program supported by NIH since 2009, aimed at evaluating immunological, microbiological, and genetic factors involved with localized aggressive periodontal disease in children and adolescents.

Shaddox obtained her DDS, MS, and PHD at the University of Campinas, Brazil, with part of her PhD being developed in conjunction with the Department of Oral Biology at University of Florida (UF) College of Dentistry. She completed a one-year post-doctoral fellowship in Periodontal Microbiology at UF before joining UF Periodontology as full-time faculty. Shaddox joined the Division of Periodontology at UKCD in 2018. She has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals, has been an ad-hoc member of several NIH study sections since 2016, and is the recipient of several research student-mentored awards and personal awards, including the prestigious American Academy of Periodontology Teaching Fellowship Award and the University of Florida Professorship Award.