Founders

Dr. William P. Magee Jr.

Co-founder and Executive Chairman

Dr. William P. Magee Jr., is a leading plastic and craniofacial surgeon who founded Operation Smile in 1982 with his wife, Kathleen S. Magee, and serves as the organization's Executive Chairman.

Operation Smile is a worldwide children’s medical charity whose network of global volunteers are dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children and young adults. In 2007, UNICEF presented the Magees with a special recognition on behalf of Operation Smile. To date, Operation Smile has provided more than 3.5 million comprehensive healthcare evaluations and performed over 200,000 free surgeries for children and young adults born with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities. Operation Smile works in more than 60 countries.

Dr. Magee has trained thousands of physicians worldwide. A featured guest on many network television programs, Dr. Magee is also a keynote speaker at many corporate and national meetings.

Dr. Magee received a D.D.S. from the University of Maryland, M.D. from George Washington University Medical School, served his general surgery residency at the University of Virginia Medical School and received his plastic surgery training in Norfolk, Virginia.

Awarded the Hays-Fulbright Scholar Grant from the Franco-American Commission, he studied in France with Dr. Paul Tessier, the father of craniofacial surgery. He has been published in numerous medical journals and medical texts and was honored by the American Medical Association and the American Plastic Surgery Society. Dr. Magee has been awarded honorary doctorates from six universities and the American Medical Association honored him with its 2000 Pride in the Profession Award; and he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Dr. Magee maintains a private practice in Norfolk and is Co-Director of The Institute for Craniofacial and Plastic Surgery in the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters. He is a Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Southern California and an Associate Professor at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.

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Kathleen S. Magee

Co-founder and President

Kathleen S. Magee, B.S.N., M.Ed., M.S.W., co-founded Operation Smile in 1982 with her husband, William P. Magee Jr., and currently serves as its President on a full-time, volunteer basis.

Operation Smile is a worldwide children’s medical charity whose network of global volunteers are dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children and young adults. To date, Operation Smile has provided more than 3.5 million comprehensive healthcare evaluations and performed over 200,000 free surgeries for children and young adults born with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities. Operation Smile works in more than 60 countries.

Ms. Magee also is a lifetime member of the Board of Directors. She travels overseas extensively to nurture and maintain key corporate, diplomatic and medical partnerships that enable Operation Smile to carry out its surgical missions.

The Magees have been the recipients of numerous awards and honors including the first $1 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize in 1996, the Servants of Peace Award in 1997, the Golden Plate Award and Kellogg's Hannah Neil World of Children Award in 1999, and in 2001 the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service and the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for Exceptional Endeavors of Outstanding Moral and Humanitarian Value by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2007, USAID presented the Magees with the President's Call to Service Award from President George W. Bush.

A New Jersey native, Ms. Magee received her B.S.N. from College Misericordia in Pennsylvania, her M.Ed. from the University of Maryland and her M.S.W. from Norfolk State University in Virginia. She also completed graduate work at the University of Virginia and Jung Institute in Switzerland.

- Download Kathleen Magee's full biography