Saturday Academy

Mission and Background

The mission of the Saturday Academy is to increase diversity in the healthcare professions, especially dentistry, by introducing underrepresented high school students to the profession of dentistry, while simultaneously preparing them for the college application process.

Established in 2012 by Dr. Lorel Burns and Dr. Cheryline Pezzullo — at the time, both second-year students at the College — this preparatory program meets biweekly on Saturdays, 7 sessions per Fall semester, and has introduced 286 high school students to the field of dentistry as a career option. We are happy to report that some of our early Saturday Academy alumni are now dental students.

The NYU Dentistry Saturday Academy is thankful to the ADEAGies Foundation for its contribution to our programming expansion effort: Lengthening the Pipeline for Program Alumni (2020-2022).

Saturday Academy 2020 & 2021

Due to COVID-19, Saturday Academy 2020 & 2021 were virtual experiences. The program was recently mentioned on the "This American Life" podcast! In an episode on the college admissions process during the pandemic, Lorraine, a Saturday Academy student, is featured in the first few minutes of the podcast expressing how much fun it was for her to receive the special toolkit at home and learn about dentistry remotely.