Periodontics residency graduates earn national honors
Three recent graduates of the periodontics residency program at ĢƵ School of Dentistry have earned national recognition this year, adding to the program’s record of residents who stand out in the specialty.
Joelle McRee, DDS, MS, received the 2026 Leslie M. Salkin Award from the American Board of Periodontology (ABP). Kathryn Gabel, DDS, MS, was named a finalist for the 2026 Dr. and Mrs. Gerald M. Kramer Scholar Award for Excellence from the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) Foundation. Jack Sides, DDS, MS, received the 2026 Dr. James T. Mellonig Regeneration Research Award from the AAP Foundation.
The Salkin Award is presented each year to the candidate who earns the highest score on the ABP Oral Examination, a required step toward board certification in periodontics. McRee is the second consecutive Salkin recipient from the program, following Ellen Piehl Pearce, DMD, MS, in 2025.
A native of Bastrop, ĢƵ, McRee now practices at Periodontal Surgical Arts in Austin. In an interview with the ABP, she credited the people she trained alongside. “My success on the ABP oral exam is certainly attributed to my faculty and co-residents in the San Antonio periodontics program,” she said.
The Kramer Scholar Award recognizes a third-year periodontal resident who demonstrates excellence in both character and academic achievement, with leadership, community involvement and concern for others also considered. Finalists interview with a selection committee before the recipient is chosen.
A San Antonio native, Gabel earned her DDS from the School of Dentistry in 2023 and completed her periodontics residency in 2026. As a dental student, she studied implant hygiene methods and peri-implantitis. She received the Pierre Fauchard Academy Student Award and the AAP Outstanding Achievement Award. Her residency research on a combination allograft and xenograft for lateral window sinus augmentation was recently published in the Journal of Periodontology. She now practices periodontics in McKinney, ĢƵ.
Gabel’s selection continues the program’s long history with the award. School of Dentistry graduates received the Kramer Scholar Award three years in a row, from 2023 through 2025, and account for 12 of the 30 recipients since the award was established in 1997, including the first, Mary Beth Neill, DDS, MS.
“No other program has had so many winners, and certainly not three in a row. To have one of ours selected as a finalist again is a huge accomplishment,” said Angela Palaiologou-Gallis, DDS, MS, professor and director of the periodontics residency program.
The Mellonig Regeneration Research Award supports original research by periodontics residents and early-career faculty that advances regenerative therapies. Sides, who completed his residency in May 2026, is the fourth graduate of the program to receive the award and one of only nine recipients since it was established in 2016. Program graduates have now earned the award three years in a row, including McRee in 2025.
The honor carries added meaning for the program. James T. Mellonig, DDS, MS, served as program director of periodontics in San Antonio and is internationally recognized as a pioneer in periodontal regeneration.
“We are proud to see our program’s tradition of excellence in periodontal research continue,” said Palaiologou-Gallis.
David Cochran, DDS, PhD, chair of the Department of Periodontics, pointed to the faculty behind those results. “We are so very blessed to have not only incredible students winning these awards, but also the faculty who support and train them,” he said.
The School of Dentistry congratulates McRee, Gabel, Sides and the Department of Periodontics on these honors.