Gold Medal Award Winner for 2021
Martha Somerman, D.D.S., Ph.D., has distinguished herself over a career of more than 50 years as the author of seminal research on the development and regeneration of oral tissue affected by gum disease. From 2011 to 2019, she served as director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the lead U.S. agency for scientific research on dental, oral and craniofacial health and disease. In this role, Dr. Somerman expanded the agency’s clinical program focused on rare and undiagnosed diseases within the dental-oral-craniofacial complex. She also served as principal investigator of the Laboratory of Oral Connective Tissue Biology at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and as senior clinical advisory staff at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.