University of Kentucky Dean and Orofacial Pain Pioneer Dr. Jeffrey P. Okeson Receives Academy of General Dentistry’s Prestigious Dr. Thaddeus V. Weclew Award

The Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) has named Jeffrey P. Okeson, DMD, the 2026 recipient of the Dr. Thaddeus V. Weclew Award, the organization’s most distinguished honor for educators. The award, presented annually to a dentist who has made exceptional contributions to the art and science of dentistry, recognizes a career that is as rare in its scope as it is remarkable in its impact.

The Dr. Thaddeus V. Weclew Award is named in memory of AGD’s founding father and is presented annually to a distinguished educator who has made exceptional contributions to dentistry and significantly advanced the AGD’s mission and principles. The award celebrates individuals whose work exemplifies a deep commitment to comprehensive dental care, education and the mentorship of future dental professionals, a description that could have been written with Okeson in mind.

For more than 52 years, Okeson has done something most specialists only dream of.  He has taken one of dentistry’s most complex and chronically underserved areas, orofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders (TMD), and made it accessible to practitioners around the world, one lecture, one clinic, one student at a time. His colleagues have referred to him as the world ambassador of orofacial pain.

Okeson has more than 1350 invited lectures in all 50 states and in 61 different countries, published more than 265 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and authored two foundational textbooks that have become standards of the field. His textbook “Management of Temporomandibular Disorders and Occlusion,” now in its ninth edition, is used in most U.S. dental schools and has been translated into 14 languages. His companion volume, “Bell’s Oral and Facial Pains,” has been translated into six languages. Together, the books have put evidence-based orofacial pain care within reach of clinicians on six continents.

Orofacial pain occupies an unusual and often overlooked space in health care. Physicians tend to have limited knowledge of oral structures; dentists tend to have limited training in neurology. Okeson has spent his career living in exactly that intersection of training multidisciplinary medical and dental audiences to recognize and treat a patient population that has historically had few places to turn.

“Orofacial pain is a bit of a black hole in medicine,” said Kimberly Wright, DMD, MAGD, AGD vice president. “Dr. Okeson lives in his educational world right where those two disciplines intersect, and he can take a profoundly complex topic and help a novice begin to understand and treat this underserved area of our profession the very next day.”

Since graduating from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, Okeson has devoted his entire career to academia, rising from clinical faculty to department chair and now serving as dean of the college. Yet his academic pedigree has never created distance from the practicing dentist. Clinicians who attend his lectures consistently leave with skills they can apply immediately, a testament to his ability to translate research into real-world care.

Okeson and his team present an annual week-long didactic program on orofacial pain and TMD that has been attended by 965 participants from 70 different countries. Among his most beloved contributions is a week-long clinical immersion program at the University of Kentucky in which participants shadow Okeson as he treats patients and teaches both predoctoral and postdoctoral students. The program gives practitioners an up-close look at the kind of empathetic, methodical clinical thinking that has made Okeson one of the most sought-after speakers in his field, a lecturer known for drawing sold-out audiences wherever he goes.

Okeson will be presented with the Dr. Thaddeus V. Weclew Award at AGD2026, in Las Vegas.