Dr. Madeline Maupin Hicks is a native Louisvillian.  After graduating from Indiana University, she returned home to teach in the Louisville Independent Public School District for one year before beginning her freshman year at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry. On that first August day of orientation, Madeline Learned that she would be the only African American student in her class and one of only three females.  That year, she became the first African American female to ever attend the University of Louisville school of Dentistry.

After graduation in 1975, she began her family and cosmetic dental practice in Doctor’s Office Building at 250 E. Liberty St. That same year, she began overseeing treatment of mothers and their children at the Jefferson County Health Department’s dental clinic in the Southwest Government Center on Dixie Highway in Pleasure Ridge Park. Later, she served as extra mural faculty for the University of Louisville as students treated patients at this clinic site under her supervision.

With much patience and a lot of educational tools, Dr. Hicks was able to transform her patient pool that originally sought an extraction as the solution to every dental problem, into one that wanted preventive care and the highest quality restorative and cosmetic dentistry. She served as a teacher and mentor to many students from the University of Louisville and from the University of Kentucky, who had an extra mural experience in her private practice.

In August of 2002, Dr. Hicks joined the faculty at the University of Louisville School as a part-time instructor of clinical and preclinical dentistry.