Phillip T. Marucha, DMD, PhD, has been named dean of Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) School of Dentistry. Marucha, a dentist and immunologist, is expected to join OHSU in September.
Marucha is the ninth dean in the dental school’s 114-year history. He will lead the school as it moves into its new home, the Skourtes Tower, which is scheduled to open in 2014 within the OHSU/OUS Collaborative Life Sciences Building.
Marucha currently serves as associate dean for research and director of graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. He will replace Dean Emeritus Jack W. Clinton, DMD, who retired in 2012. Dean Clinton now is helping coordinate the dental school’s transition into the Skourtes Tower. Since Clinton’s retirement, Gary Chiodo, DMD, FACD, has served as interim dean.
Prior to his associate deanship at the University of Illinois, Marucha served as professor and head of the periodontics department in the UIC College of Dentistry. He also was a professor of periodontology and director of the comprehensive training in craniofacial sciences program at Ohio State University.
Marucha received his dental medicine degree from the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine and remained there for a certificate in periodontology and a doctoral degree in immunology. In 2007, he became an American Dental Education Association Leadership Institute Fellow.
Marucha is an active researcher with nearly 200 publications, abstracts, and invited presentations. He has been a principal investigator on more than a dozen grants and has been an investigator or mentor on another 30 research and/or training grants. Marucha’s most recent research projects include implementing a clinical research program to improve the health and well-being of minority populations, as well as understanding the basic mechanisms of human disease susceptibility through multidisciplinary research in the psychosocial, biologic, and genetic factors that regulate inflammation, microbial clearance, and wound healing in skin and oral mucosa.
