Alongside its newly announced Gold Tier partnership with Seattle Study Club, Oryx Dental has established and underwritten a new annual scholarship bearing the name of one of dentistry's most influential educators: John Kois, DMD, MSD.
The John Kois Scholarship will be awarded annually to a Seattle Study Club member, with each recipient receiving a free one-year membership for a colleague within their study club. The first award was presented in 2026 to Tina Jung, DDS, MS, Director of the Los Angeles Dental Collective. The 2027 award is scheduled to be presented at the Seattle Study Club Symposium.
Why the Name Matters
Dr. John Kois is the founder of the Kois Center, a Seattle-based dental education institution that has trained thousands of clinicians in evidence-based, full-mouth, interdisciplinary care. His approach — grounded in risk assessment, biomechanics, and long-term patient outcomes — has influenced a generation of dentists who view clinical decision-making as a discipline requiring the same rigor as medicine.
For many in the Seattle Study Club community, Kois is not simply a respected educator. He is foundational. SSC's membership tends to skew toward dentists who have sought out advanced training, and the Kois Center's curriculum represents exactly the kind of continuing education that SSC members pursue and champion.
Naming the scholarship after Dr. Kois, then, is not an arbitrary branding decision. It is a signal — to SSC members and to the broader dental community — about the kind of dentistry Oryx wants to be associated with.
A Personal Connection
The scholarship also carries personal significance for Oryx's founder and CEO. Rania Saleh, DDS, MSD, has publicly credited Dr. Kois as a long-time mentor, and described the scholarship's establishment in terms that go beyond corporate partnership language.
"We're honored to establish the John Kois Scholarship in honor of my long-time mentor, Dr. Kois," Saleh said in the announcement. "Oral health is an integral part of overall health, connecting to many chronic diseases and conditions. Dentists play an important role in ensuring patients get the best oral care possible, helping to improve their health and lives."
That framing — connecting continuing dental education to broader health outcomes — reflects a clinical worldview that Kois himself has long championed and that Oryx has built into its platform's design philosophy.
The Scholarship in Context
Dental continuing education has historically faced access barriers that fall disproportionately on early-career clinicians, dentists in underserved or rural settings, and those practicing in smaller or independent settings without the institutional support that larger group practices or DSOs can provide.
By structuring the John Kois Scholarship as a membership award — one that gives the recipient a year of SSC participation for a colleague — Oryx and Seattle Study Club are making a deliberate choice to extend access rather than simply recognize achievement. The goal is not to honor a dentist who is already well-connected; it is to pull someone new into the network.
Tina Jung, DDS, MS, the inaugural 2026 recipient and Director of the Los Angeles Dental Collective, represents exactly the kind of clinician-leader this award appears designed to recognize and support.
What It Signals for the Industry
Named scholarships within dental education are not new. But they are relatively rare coming from software companies, and rarer still when the honoree is an active, living educator whose clinical methods are still being refined and taught.
The choice to attach Oryx's name — and financial commitment — to John Kois's legacy is a deliberate positioning move. It places Oryx alongside institutions and individuals that dental professionals trust, not simply because of market share or growth metrics, but because of a shared commitment to the kind of dentistry that produces better patient outcomes over time.
Whether that positioning translates into meaningful membership growth for Seattle Study Club or increased adoption of Oryx among high-CE dentists remains to be seen. What is clear is that the dental industry now has a new annual moment — the John Kois Scholarship presentation at the Seattle Study Club Symposium — that carries weight beyond the award itself.
Nominations and eligibility details for the 2027 award are expected to be announced through Seattle Study Club's member communications. More information on Oryx Dental is available at oryxdental.com.