Dr. Ryan Richard Ruff Named University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine Division Chief of Community Oral Health

University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental Medicine) has named Ryan Richard Ruff, Ph.D., M.P.H., as the new Division Chief of Community Oral Health. His appointment to this leadership role and as an associate professor is effective Feb.1.

The Division of Community Oral Health, within Penn Dental Medicine’s Department of Preventive and Restorative Sciences, is responsible for the D.M.D. didactic and community-based experiential and clinical education for community and public health and health promotion.

“We are thrilled to be welcoming Dr. Ruff to Penn Dental Medicine,” says Mark S. Wolff, D.D.S., Ph.D., Morton Amsterdam Dean of Penn Dental Medicine. “He brings a wealth of community-based work to this role to help us build upon the care we are providing in the community and the public health experiences and understanding of our students.”

Dr. Ruff comes to Penn Dental Medicine from NYU College of Dentistry, where he served as Associate Professor and Director of the Biostatistics Core, as well as Director of the Clinical Research Master of Science Program. He was also an Associated Professor at the NYU School of Global Public Health and a recurring instructor at the Columbia University Epidemiology & Population Health Institute. Additionally, Dr. Ruff serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

As an epidemiologist and public health professional with an interest in school health, Dr. Ruff’s research, as principal investigator, involves designing pragmatic clinical trials and community-based participatory research studies to increase access to oral health care and improve child development. He has received over $22 million in research funding as a principal investigator from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Dr. Ruff holds a Ph.D. in research, statistics and evaluation from the University of Virginia, an M.P.H. in epidemiology from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in education from Cambridge University. He was named a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology in 2022.

Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine