Research Funding Awards

  • Dr. Lee Za Ong, Associate Professor & Director of the Predoctoral Program in Behavioral Sciences and Ethics in the School of Dentistry has received a $100,000 grant award from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) 2026 Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program.  The grant award is entitled, “Mental Health Screening and Intervention with Next-Generation Empathic Agentic AI Systems: Integrating the SBIRT Framework to Enhance Accessibility and Behavioral Outcomes”.
  • Dr. Meisam Omidi, Delta Dental Research Lab Manager in the School of Dentistry received a $10,000 Healthy Americas Foundation research grant entitled, “Pregabalin and Tooth Loss: Exploring Oral Health Risks in Diverse Populations.”  The Healthy Americas: All of Us Research Program, is funded in whole or in part, under the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Other Transaction Authority (“OTA”).  Dr. Jeffrey Toth serves as a Co-Investigator and predoctoral student Thomas McDonald will serves as a student investigator on the project.
  • Dr. Lee Za Ong, Associate Professor & Director of the Predoctoral Program in Behavioral Sciences and Ethics in the School of Dentistry is the Principal Investigator (PI) on a $2.4 million Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program for Professionals grant awarded to Marquette University by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in 2025 for the project entitled, “Marquette Behavioral Workforce Education and Supervisor Support.”   The grant will develop and expand experiential training opportunities to improve the distribution and supply of the behavioral health workforce. (Read more).
  • Dr. Elsbeth Kalenderian, Dean and Professor of Surgical Sciences in the School of Dentistry has received a $49,953 grant award as PI from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) 2025 Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program.  Collaborators on the grant award include Dr. Shengtong Han, Dr. Arndt Guentsch, and Mr. Thomas Wirtz.  The grant award is entitled, “Enhancing Dental Clinical Data through Innovative Machine Learning Approaches”.
  • Dr. Lee Za Ong, Associate Professor & Director of the Predoctoral Program in Behavioral Sciences and Ethics in the School of Dentistry has received a $50,000 grant award from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) 2025 Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program.  Collaborators on the grant award include Dr. Praveen Madiraju and Dr. Sabirat Rubya. The grant award is entitled, “A machine learning approach to mentor matching for veterans with PTSD”.
  • Dr. Shengtong Han, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in the Office of the Dean and Department of General Dental Sciences has received a $50,000 grant award from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) 2025 Paving ROADS Seed Fund Program.  The grant award is entitled, “Deep MOTIFs a deep learning approach for multi-omics integration for autism risk genes discovery”.
  • Dr. Lee Za Ong, Associate Professor & Director of the Predoctoral Program in Behavioral Sciences and Ethics in the School of Dentistry has received a $2,500 grant award from the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) 2025 Student Scholars program.  Dr. Anna Tsvetkova is a collaborator on the grant award.  The grant award is entitled, “Mental health, income, and access: Exploring virtual service use among disabled and unemployed adults in the U.S. population”.
  • Dr. Zaid Badr, Clinical Assistant Professor and Director, Technological Innovation Center received a $3,000 Marquette University Participating Faculty 2025 Research Achievement Award from the Office of Research and Innovation at Marquette University.
  • Dr. Elisabeta Karl, Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs is the Principal Investigator (PI) on a $1.37 million grant awarded to Marquette University by the Department of Education (DOE) in 2024 for the project entitled, “Establishing the Open Dental Education Consortium.”  Dr. Casey Wright will serve as a co-principal investigator.  The grant will fund the creation of a consortium institution consisting of faculty member content experts in collaboration with instructional designers to make open educational resources (OER) available to dental students.  OER are free, openly licensed materials that can be used for learning and research.  The founding members of the consortium have identified at least six different books that will be the first targeted products of the grant. (Read more).
  • Dr. Daniela Masson-Meyers, postdoctoral research fellow in the Delta Dental Research Laboratory was awarded a $2,500 Participating Faculty Development Award from the Office of Faculty Affairs in the Marquette University’s Provost’s Office for her research project entitled, “Biological implications of dental curing lights on oral cells.” 
  • Dr. Jeffrey Toth, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biomaterials and Dr. Carol Everson, Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin are multiple principal investigators (MPI) on a $2.38 million R01 grant from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging for the project entitled, “Chronic Sleep Deficiency as a Cause of Bone Loss in Aging.”  The grant will examine the link between bone loss and chronic sleep restriction. This research aims to shed new light on this complex relationship, offering valuable insights into the cellular consequences of sleep restriction and risk of disease, including its impact on bone health. This research has significant implications for dental health, as bone healing is essential after common oral procedures and surgeries, such as tooth extractions and dental implants.  (Read more).
  • Dr. Zaid Badr, Clinical Assistant Professor and Director, Technological Innovation Center received a $70,000 SUPER grant from Straumann USA LLC.  The gift/ donation from the company will provide fellowship support and an in kind donation of equipment. 
  • Dr. Christopher Okunseri, Professor and Director of the Predoctoral Program in Dental Public Health in the Department of Community Dental Sciences received a $50,000  2024 Community-Driven Ensemble Award as the Ensemble Lead from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin for a community based research project entitled, “Unmet Oral Health Care Needs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”  This project continues a longstanding research focus of the Marquette University Dental School in the areas of Dental Public Health and Access to Care (Health Disparities and Health Services Research).
  • Dr. Zaid Badr, Clinical Assistant Professor and Director, Technological Innovation Center received a $10,000 grant from the Marquette University Office of the Provost for his research project entitled: “Fracture resistance of monolithic and multi-yttria-layered CAD/CAM zirconia crowns milled at different disk locations.”  (Read more).
  • Dr. Christopher Okunseri, Professor and Director of the Predoctoral Program in Dental Public Health in the Department of Community Dental Sciences is a multiple principal investigator (MPI) on a $3.55 million NIH UH3 grant from the NIH: National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research for a research project entitled, “No-show Prevention Practices in Dental Care Settings Serving Underserved Populations.”  This project continues a longstanding research focus of the Marquette University Dental School in the areas of Dental Public Health and Access to Care (Health Disparities and Health Services Research).  (Read more).
  • Dr. Pradeep Bhagavatula (PI), Professor, Program in Dental Public Health in the Department of Clinical Services and Dr. Shengtong Han (Co-PI), Assistant Professor of Biostatistics have received a one-year $50,000 award from The Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) for their research project entitled “Follow-up care after Emergency Department visits for Non-Traumatic Dental conditions (NTDC) in Southeastern (SE) Wisconsin.” Dr. Naveen Bansal and Dr. Wenhui Shen from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics are co-investigators.
  • Dr. Shengtong Han, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in the Marquette University School of Dentistry is the Marquette University P.I. on an N.I.H. R01 sub-award for an N.I.H. National Human Genome Research Institute (N.H.G.R.I.) R01 Project entitled, “Refining mutation rates and measures of purifying selection with an application to understanding the impact of non-coding variation on neuropsychiatric diseases.” The University of Chicago is the primary on the award.
  • Dr. Arndt Guentsch, Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgical and Diagnostic Sciences at the Marquette University School of Dentistry is the PI on a new Research Service Center Agreement with Straumann Dental Implants entitled, “Sleeve or sleeve-less guided implant surgery.”  This research award continues to build on the Marquette University Dental School’s strong research theme of Biomaterials, Dental Medical Devices, and Tissue Engineering.