Jonathan E. Burke, D.M.D., has been selected to serve as Director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), effective September 20, 2026. “Dr. Burke has spent his career at the intersection of surgical excellence and patient care and is a leader in craniofacial trauma and cleft palate reconstruction. That depth of hands-on clinical experience gives him a valuable perspective as NIDCR continues to translate groundbreaking research into better outcomes for patients. I am eager for him to join the NIH leadership team,” said NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D.
About Jonathan Burke
Burke is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon with more than three decades of clinical and academic leadership in the field. He most recently served as medical director of an oral and maxillofacial consulting firm in Philadelphia while continuing to practice dentistry. He previously served as assistant professor of surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he co-founded the institution’s first Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and supervised surgical residents across multiple specialties. While there, he concurrently held a clinical assistant professor appointment at Temple University’s Kornberg School of Dentistry, training oral and maxillofacial surgical residents in clinical and operating room settings. He has maintained active hospital privileges at multiple health systems, including staff status with the Regional Cleft Palate Program in Camden, New Jersey.
Early in his career, Burke served as principal or co-investigator on research spanning temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pharmacology, implant devices, and post-surgical pain management, and has co-authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on craniofacial trauma, reconstruction, and TMJ disorders. He has remained an active voice in his field’s professional community, delivering invited lectures and scientific presentations at national meetings of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association.
Burke received his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and his doctorate in dental medicine from Temple University in Philadelphia. He completed his residency through rotations at multiple Philadelphia-area hospitals and his postgraduate training as Chief Resident in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, also at Temple University Hospital.
Bhattacharya also thanked Burke’s predecessor. “With gratitude, I thank Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque, D.D.S., Ph.D., who has effectively led NIDCR in an acting capacity since April 2024. Her confident and steady leadership has helped the institute fulfill its mission to translate research findings into actionable prevention, early detection, and treatment strategies that improve overall health for all Americans,” he said.
About NIDCR
NIDCR oversees an annual budget exceeding $520 million supporting research into oral cancer, orofacial pain, tooth decay, periodontal disease, salivary gland dysfunction, craniofacial development and disorders, and the oral complications of systemic diseases, funding approximately 750 awards across 660 investigators and 200 organizations, and supporting roughly 380 researchers and trainees at various career stages. NIDCR is one of 27 Institutes and Centers that make up NIH, the nation’s medical research agency and a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research into the causes, treatments, and cures for common and rare diseases.
