Professor of Clinical Dentistry Eddie Sheh is slated to receive a 2018 USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching at the 37th annual Academic Honors Convocation on April 24

The award is one of the highest honors that USC faculty bestows on its members for outstanding teaching, both in and out of the classroom.

It is the latest in a series of awards recognizing Sheh for teaching.

Sheh won the annual Excellence in Teaching Award from the Century Club Alumni Association in both 2015 and 2017. He was also recognized by the Associated Student Body with an Outstanding Faculty Award and, in 2005, a Teacher of the Year Award from the Pierre Fauchard Academy, an international honorary dental service organization.

High expectations

Sheh graduated from USC’s Advanced Standing for International Dentists (ASPID) program in 1991 and immediately joined Ostrow as a part-time preclinical adjunct faculty member. In 1999, he completed his prosthodontics certificate and became a full-time faculty member. He was promoted to professor in 2016.

Sheh is known to Ostrow students for teaching the year-long sequence in restorative sciences, including modules in indirect restorations, anterior fixed prosthodontics and posterior fixed prosthodontics — the cornerstones of a student’s preclinical education.

He consistently receives nearly perfect student evaluation scores upon the completion of these courses. “Students frequently comment that the exams he prepares are challenging, and his expectations very high,” said Associate Professor Sillas Duarte, chair of the Division of Restorative Sciences, in his nomination letter. “But his kindness, approachability and enthusiastic attitude make the courses very exciting.”

An inspirational figure

Sheh has worked tirelessly to help these modules evolve by incorporating the latest technology and dental materials into the student’s training, engaging students in self-learning and self-correction and calibrating faculty members to ensure consistency of instructional quality.

“[He] is a brilliant clinician, an excellent teacher and a great mentor,” wrote Assistant Professor of Clinical Dentistry Gabriela Anderson in her nomination letter. “He upholds the highest degrees of ethics and integrity, and he is an inspiration to all faculty and students.”

Anderson is one of the many junior faculty members who Sheh has mentored to be leaders in dental education.

Sheh is also the co-chair of the Section of Fixed Prosthodontics and Operative Dentistry and the director of ASPID, Ostrow’s international dentistry program.