Nadia Laniado, DDS '84, MPH, MS, director of community dentistry and population health at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital, and associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, was named the 2026 recipient of the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine (SDM) Distinguished Alumni Award.
The honor is given annually to a graduate who has demonstrated a commitment to excellence. Laniado will receive the award at the school’s annual White Coat Ceremony, to be held at the Staller Center for the Arts on Stony Brook University’s main campus on April 10.
“It feels very humbling to be recognized for this achievement especially when I see the formidable group of past recipients for whom I have such admiration and respect,” said Laniado, who will deliver the keynote address at the ceremony. “I am truly honored.”
“Dr. Laniado’s leadership in public health dentistry, commitment to education, and dedication to improving access to care make her an outstanding representative of our alumni community and a truly deserving recipient of this award,” said Patrick Lloyd, DDS, MS, dean, School of Dental Medicine.
Laniado is a diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and the American Board of Dental Public Health. She is the program director of Jacobi’s Dental Public Health (DPH) Residency – the only residency of its kind in New York City. She has also been an active participant in organized dentistry, having served as president of the American Association of Public Health Dentistry (AAPHD) from 2022 to 2023, and as co-chair of the AAPHD’s Dental Public Health Residency Program Directors Committee. Her passion for integrated care led to the development of the first interprofessional didactic and clinical oral health program for medical students at Einstein.
“I take tremendous pride and joy in mentoring the new generation of dentists and seeing where their careers take them,” Laniado said. “I am constantly amazed and inspired by their intelligence, passion and dedication to the profession.”
Laniado came to Stony Brook from Cornell University. After earning her DDS, she completed a general practice residency at Booth Memorial Medical Center in Flushing, New York, followed by an orthodontics residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. In 2015, she undertook a dental public health residency at Jacobi Medical Center and has served as director of the program since 2022.
“I had such a wonderful time at Stony Brook,” Laniado said. “Our class of 27 made it through the marathon of dental school with mutual respect, compassion and a lot of laughter. We were as diverse a group of people as you could find, yet we formed a cohesive unit with strong bonds that enabled us not only to survive, but to do so with grace.”
Laniado has a distinguished career as a dental educator. She spent three years as a clinical instructor of medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania before opening her own orthodontic practice in Scarsdale, New York, which she operated for 18 years. Laniado returned to academia in 2010 as a clinical attending at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, and was later appointed director of community dentistry and population health at Jacobi/North Central Bronx. She has been on faculty at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine since 2017 in both its Department of Dentistry and Department of Epidemiology and Population Health.
Laniado has also been the principal investigator of multiple Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants for postgraduate training in general practice, pediatric dentistry and dental public health at Jacobi. Her research interests include interprofessional education and collaboration, access to care and workforce training, and the impact of social determinants of health on oral health.
In addition to her DDS from Stony Brook, Laniado holds a Master of Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and a Master of Science in Clinical Research from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.