The ADA is now accepting applications for its new John W. Stanford New Investigator Award, recognizing the crucial role dental standards play in assuring patient health and safety and the efficacy of dental products. The award was designed to encourage dentists and dental students to conduct standards-based research and standards development.

Dental students and dentists who have earned their dental degree no earlier than 2007 are eligible to apply for the John W. Stanford New Investigator Award. Applicants are required to submit an original research report that could be published and must submit an explanation of how the research incorporates current dental standards and/or contributed to the development of dental standards. Applications, which can be downloaded from the ADA Web site, are due by August 31, 2012.

The awards committee inlcudes an ADA board member as well as leaders from the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs and the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Products. The committee, along with the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs, will select the winner, which will be announced in December.

The winner will receive airfare and a 2-night hotel stay to present his or her award-winning paper at the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Products and the US Technical Advisory Group to the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 106 on Dentistry Meeting in Seattle in March 2013. The winner will also be announced in the ADA’s member publication, ADA News, and the winning paper will be eligible for publication in a dental journal.