IU Dental School Professors Honored by Indiana Dental Association

Lorinda Coan View print-quality image
Michael Cochran

The Indiana Dental Association (IDA) recently honored an Indiana University School of Dentistry dental hygiene professor and one of the school’s former graduate directors for their contributions to education and the field of dentistry.

Lorinda L. Coan, clinical assistant professor of dental hygiene, received the IDA’s “Outstanding Teacher of the Year” award in recognition of her service during the 2008-2009 academic year. Coan has worked tirelessly with others on the faculty and staff this past year to build upon the school’s new Tobacco Cessation and Biobehavioral Center (TCBC), one of IUPUI’s Signature Centers. In 2008 she undertook studies at the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center, which enabled her to become certified as a Tobacco Treatment Specialist. Working in recent years with members of the Oral Biology faculty, Coan developed a tobacco education program that has been successfully integrated into the IU dental school’s dental hygiene curriculum. For the past year, Coan, a trustee of the Indiana Dental Hygienists’ Association (IDHA), has participated in a collaboration between the IDHA and TCBC that offers training in team-based tobacco cessation to dental providers around Indiana.

Dr. Michael A. Cochran, a professor emeritus of operative dentistry who retired from the full-time faculty this past summer, received the IDA’s “Outstanding Faculty of the Year” award in recognition of his body of work since joining the IU faculty in 1978. He continues to teach at the school part time as a member of the volunteer faculty. Cochran chaired the former Department of Operative Dentistry from 1988 to 1993, and was named director of Graduate Operative Dentistry when the department became part of the new Restorative Dentistry department. As a national leader in his field, Cochran brought honor to the IU School of Dentistry in 1999 by accepting the editorship of Operative Dentistry, an international peer-reviewed journal. Over his career he has worked closely with both predoctoral and graduate students of dentistry, and he has been cited for clinical excellence by the American Academy of Gold Foil Operators.