Morris is widely known on the local, state and national levels as a leader in dental hygiene education, professional development and leadership.

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Donna Warren Morris, RDH, MEd, has been named director of the Dental Hygiene Program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Dentistry. She assumed her new role Aug. 1.

Morris is widely known on the local, state and national levels as a leader in dental hygiene education, professional development and leadership. She is a member of the American Dental Hygienists' Association, the American Dental Education Association and the Texas Oral Health Coalition.

Morris will take on several new initiatives for the dental hygiene program, such as expanding the baccalaureate degree-completion program and working with UTHealth School of Public Health to offer concurrent BSDH/MPH degrees, according to John A. Valenza, DDS, dean of the school of dentistry.

Morris joined the UTHealth faculty in 1993 and is a professor in the department of periodontics and dental hygiene. She is a graduate and former faculty member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned a dental hygiene certificate, a bachelor's degree in dental auxiliary teacher education and a master's degree in adult and higher education. She has won multiple awards for teaching excellence, including two John P. McGovern Awards and the prestigious University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award.