Dr. Ricky E. Harrell is a 1979 graduate of the University of Alabama School of Dentistry. After serving as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service in the Navajo Area Indian Health Service for three years, he returned to the University of Alabama and completed his residency in orthodontics in 1984. He was in the private practice of orthodontics in Westminster, CO from 1984-2006. Upon leaving private practice in 2006, he became a commissioned officer in the US Army Reserves, 919th Medical CO (DS) in Aurora, CO and joined the faculty at the University of Colorado. He earned an MA in education from the University of the Pacific in 2014.Dr. Harrell most recently served as program director and professor in the Department of Orthodontics at the Medical University of South Carolina. His clinical teaching interests include temporary anchorage devices, diode laser treatment, the role of extractions in orthodontic treatment, and surgical orthodontics. Dr. Harrell de-commissioned from the US Army Reserves as a Lt. Colonel in the medical corps in August 2016 after 10 years of service in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and two deployments to Camp Bucca, Iraq, and Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan.
Dr. Harrell is a member of the American Association of Orthodontists (1984) and the Southern Association of Orthodontists (2015). He is also a certified Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics (2010).
When out of the office, he enjoys music, fishing, skiing, hiking, yard work, reading, and spending time with his wife, Melanie, and their family.