Awards, Faculty and Staff, Operative Dentistry

Ahmed Awarded Academy of Operative Dentistry Faculty Excellence Award

Sumi Ahmed, BDS, MS, assistant dean for student life and associate professor of operative dentistry in the Division of Comprehensive Oral Health, has been named the 2023 recipient of the Academy of Operative Dentistry’s Rising Star Faculty Award. The award recognizes and promotes excellence in the pursuit of teaching clinical dentistry by faculty early in their careers.

“I am deeply grateful and honored for this recognition,” said Ahmed. “I was fortunate to learn from great mentors who exemplified the roles and responsibilities of being an operative dentistry faculty at UNC Adams and who paved a path for me to excel. I hope to follow in their footsteps and create a safe environment for my students, where they can become their best!”

As the Rising Star Faculty Award recipient, Ahmed will be formally honored at the Academy of Operative Dentistry’s annual meeting in February 2023. She will receive a cash award to augment and foster her scholarship, a commemorative award, complimentary meeting registration and a stipend toward travel expenses.

“As a member of the organization myself, I am thrilled that Dr. Ahmed has received this level of national recognition from the Academy of Operative Dentistry,” said Interim Dean Ed Swift, DMD, MS. “She has been a star at UNC Adams for her entire tenure in Chapel Hill, and we are incredibly proud of her work each day helping our students to become excellent clinicians and professionals.”

The Rising Star Faculty Award is supported by the Academy of Operative Dentistry’s Founders Fund. The biennial award is designed to encourage, stimulate and support early-career faculty clinicians in their profession. Ahmed is the second UNC faculty to be given this award since its inception in 2017. The first was Gus Oliveira, DDS, MS, who received the inaugural award