Orthodontics Resident Wins UTHealth’s Burks Scholarship

Tamara Jones, DDS, a second-year orthodontics resident at The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston, has been awarded the Thomas F. Burks Scholarship for Academic Merit.

The scholarship is given each year to a UT Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) student who demonstrates excellence in academics and research.

The scholarship is named for the late Thomas Burks, PhD, a former UTHealth vice president for research and academic affairs and professor of pharmacology at the Medical School. He died in 2001 but is remembered as an outstanding researcher, an inspirational teacher, an academic leader and a friend to faculty and students. The scholarship was established as a lasting tribute to his memory and to what he valued in life. 

Jones entered UTSD’s orthodontics residency program in 2011. She was a Hunt Scholar at Southern Methodist University, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biology. She went on to earn her dental degree at Baylor College of Dentistry, where she was inducted into Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society and won the William S. Kramer Award for superb scholarship, character and service. 

Jones is a native Texan who grew up in Carrollton.