Awards, Faculty and Staff

Boushell Receives ADEA Junior Faculty Award

Dr. Lee W. Boushell, assistant professor of operative dentistry at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry, has received an American Dental Education Association (ADEA) award recognizing a dental school junior faculty member who demonstrates excellence in teaching, research and service.

Boushell received the 2009 ADEA/ADEA Council of Students/Colgate-Palmolive Junior Faculty Award at the recent 2009 ADEA Annual Session in Phoenix. He received a $2,500 award and commemorative plaque. He also addressed the Council of Students during the ADEA Annual Session.

“If you love teaching and are up for an adventure, then dental education is something you might want to consider,” Boushell said in his address to the students. “Dental education affords opportunity to be directly involved with teaching the basic facts and principles of dentistry. However, it’s my research and service with other faculty members that supports, energizes and focuses the teaching. My overall goal in this is to move the students forward into the ability to apply what they know in order to solve specific problems with their patients.”

“It has been said that no one in the class learns more than the one who had to prepare and teach the information. Never before have I found this to be so very true! Each time I am with the patients in my faculty practice, I am thinking about the things I am teaching the dental students. This can’t help but benefit my patients.”

Boushell, a faculty member at the School of Dentistry since 2006, received his D.M.D. degree from the University of Florida, his master’s degree in operative dentistry from UNC-Chapel Hill and his advanced education in general dentistry certificate from the U.S. Army DENTAC. Before joining the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, Boushell practiced general dentistry for about 10 years and taught at the University of Florida.

His research is focused on how non-collagenous proteins in teeth may contribute to dental caries. He also serves as an assistant editor for the Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry and as a reviewer for the Archives of Oral Biology, Oral Diseases and the Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry.

Tiffany Williams, a third-year dental student, wrote a letter of nomination for Boushell, a document that also included statements of support from second-year dental students Katherine Sloan and Christian Johnson.

Williams wrote: “Dr. Boushell was one of the first faculty members we encountered in our Conservative Operative Dentistry course during the first year of dental school. Right away it was evident that he cared about the learning process and was genuinely committed to making sure that we understood the concepts. Dr. Boushell did not only teach, he instructed, physically showing us how a procedure should be done, walking us through it step by step and watching to make sure that we then did it correctly.”