Noriaki Ono honored as 2025 AAAS fellow

By Kyle Rogers March 26, 2026

A man wearing glasses and a light blue checkered shirt sits at a desk in a laboratory. A large computer monitor beside them displays a brightly colored microscopic image with fluorescent markers. Behind the desk is a high-end microscope.

Professor Noriaki Ono, DDS, PhD, has been named a 2025 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Photo by Kyle Rogers.

Noriaki Ono, DDS, PhD, professor in the Department of Diagnostic and Biomedical Sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry, has been named a 2025 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious general scientific societies.

Ono was among nearly 450 scientists, engineers, and innovators elected as 2025 fellows in recognition of their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements to advance science and its applications, the association announced on March 26.

Founded in 1848, the AAAS began electing fellows in 1874. Fellows are selected by their peers for distinguished contributions to their respective fields and to the broader scientific enterprise. The 2025 fellows will be recognized at a forum on May 29 in Washington, D.C. The fellows will also be featured in the April 2026 issue of Science.

Originally from Tokyo, Ono joined UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry in July 2021. His research, supported by the National Institutes of Health since 2012, focuses on the fundamental biology of skeletal stem cells, with a broader goal of understanding the pathophysiology of dental, craniofacial, and skeletal deformities and diseases that affect millions of children and adults. His laboratory studies the function of skeletal stem cells in development, disease, and bone and cartilage regeneration.

Ono comes from a family with a lineage of dentists and orthodontists. He earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree, summa cum laude, from Tokyo Medical and Dental University in 2003 and completed his orthodontic certificate and PhD at the same institution in 2007. He later completed a research fellowship in the Endocrine Unit of Massachusetts General Hospital and served as an instructor while also teaching in the orthodontics program at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

Before joining UTHealth Houston, Ono spent seven years at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, where he served as a tenure-track assistant professor and later as a tenured associate professor in orthodontics and pediatric dentistry.

Ono is among a select group of UTHealth Houston faculty members elected to the AAAS fellowship and the most recent affiliated with the School of Dentistry since Jacqueline T. Hecht, PhD, in 2018. Hecht holds a dual faculty appointment at the School of Dentistry and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Previous honorees from the dental school include Mary C. “Cindy” Farach-Carson, PhD, in 2010; Kathleen Gibson, PhD, in 2003; Heyl Tebo, DDS, in 1971; and Paul Tullar, PhD, in 1958.

The AAAS publishes the Science family of journals and serves an international community dedicated to advancing science, engineering, and innovation for the benefit of society. Election as an AAAS fellow is considered a lifetime honor within the scientific community.