About the School of Dental Medicine

At the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine, we celebrate the diverse cultures, experiences and perspectives that our faculty, staff and students bring to our community. We strive to foster an inclusive and welcoming environment, where individuals from all backgrounds feel empowered to achieve their greatest potential. This work cannot be done without collaboration and communication. Our team, led through UB SDM's Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, includes faculty, student and staff representatives from across every department as well as community representatives. Our established programs aim to enhance recruitment and retention of historically underrepresented students, faculty, and staff, to support an inclusive learning and working environment and to address disparities in oral health and health care by training clinicians who are equipped to meet oral healthcare needs of our increasingly diverse communities. 

Beginning in the early 1960s, the then University of Buffalo was merged into the State University of New York System to become the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo}. Until then, the School of Dentistry, which began in 1892, served as a regional school that focused almost entirely on the training of dentists. With the advent of the SUNY era, huge changes ensued, including the hiring of dozens of full-time faculty to serve the expanded mission of the University to provide research, teaching and service to the local, national and international communities. Within a short period, the school's reputation, which became known as the School of Dental Medicine, greatly expanded. The purpose of this project is to tell the story of the transformation of the school into a world-leading institution through stories from some of the people who were hired during this time.