IU School of Dentistry professor to receive humanitarian award from national periodontics academy

Steven Blanchard View print-quality image

Indiana University School of Dentistry professor Steven B. Blanchard, DDS, M.S., has been named the recipient of the American Academy of Periodontology’s 2012 Humanitarian Award in recognition of his ongoing dedication to serving populations in greatest need of oral health care.

An associate professor of periodontics and director of the graduate periodontics program, Dr. Blanchard will receive the award Sept. 30 in Los Angeles. The academy is America’s governing body for the dental specialty of periodontics.

Examples of Dr. Blanchard’s efforts to aid impoverished and low-income patients include his past decade of service as a volunteer dentist at the Trinity Free Clinic in Hamilton County, Ind., and his establishment through the IU dental school in 2009 of an International Service Learning program in Honduras, where dental students and faculty have volunteered to provide oral health care and education to more than 1,000 patients to date.

Professor Emeritus E. Brady Hancock, former chair of the IU School of Dentistry Department of Periodontics and Allied Dental Programs, said his colleague’s humanitarian efforts have provided much-needed care and relief from severe dental conditions to thousands of patients in need. “He has been, and continues to be, an energetic ambassador for both dentistry and periodontics,” Dr. Hancock said.

Dr. Blanchard completed his dental education at the University of Michigan and his specialty training at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base. He joined the IU faculty after retiring from the U.S. Air Force as a colonel in 2002. Serving in Washington, D.C., as the deputy commander of the Pentagon’s on-site dental clinic in 2001, he was among the medical first-responders during the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon.