Dr. Kirthi Tata, St. Louis Area Dentist, Honored as MDA Outstanding New Dental Leader

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Dr. Kirthi Tata, a dentist in St. Louis, has been named the 2025 Missouri Dental Association (MDA) Outstanding New Dental Leader Award winner. She will be honored at the Association’s annual awards banquet hosted during its House of Delegates meeting at Margaritaville Lake Resort, June 27, 2026.

This award recognizes an MDA member who has practiced dentistry for 10 years or fewer and has demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities, professional and ethical conduct, and volunteer activities in their community and organized dentistry.

Since graduating from dental school in 2017, Dr. Tata has demonstrated strong commitment, dedication and passion for organized dentistry while successfully balancing leadership roles within the American Dental Association (ADA), MDA and Greater St. Louis Dental Society (GSLDS).

At the national level, Dr. Tata serves on the ADA New Dentist panel, which helped co-create the ADA Member App and Dental Sound Bites Podcast, for which she has also been a featured guest. Currently she serves as the Chair on Communications for the ADA Sixth District, which includes the states of Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. At the state level, Dr. Tata has been a delegate to the MDA House and has been elected a Missouri Action Team Leader to the ADA Lobby Day since 2020. In this role, she is part of a select group that advocates each year for dentistry and her colleagues in the nation’s capital.

Dr. Tata’s roles within the GSLDS are too numerous to fully list, but recent activities and accolades include her appointment as 2028 Chair of the GSLDS Council on Scientific Sessions, responsible for planning and executing the Mid-Continent Dental Congress, one of the Midwest’s premier dental meetings known for its high-quality speakers, continuing education and expansive dental exhibit hall. Serving as Chair is a multi-year commitment, and one of the Society’s most prestigious volunteer roles outside of serving as President, which she will become in 2029. Prior to these appointments, Dr. Tata has been extensively involved in many new dentist activities and was the recipient of the 2022 GSLDS Distinguished Service Award for her outstanding leadership, dedication and commitment to the success of not only GSLDS, but the Tripartite as a whole. Through dedicated and selfless service, Dr. Tata actively contributes to the work of numerous boards, councils and committees to help ensure their success.

In 2025, Dr. Tata completed the Chicago Marathon with Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft-focused organization, that over the last 25+ years, has supported 2 million+ safe, high-quality, free cleft surgeries. Her participation required minimum fundraising efforts, which helped provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive care to children in need.

In 2024, Dr. Tata was inducted as a Fellow in the Pierre Fauchard Academy. Fellows are selected based on contributions to dental literature, service to the profession, and service to the general community.

Dr. Tata received her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree in 2017 From the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry. In 2018, she completed a General Practice Residency at the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Center in Oklahoma City and earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in Chemistry and Psychology from UMKC.