Professor Alastair J Sloan announced as the new Head of MDS

The Melbourne Dental School is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Alastair J Sloan as the new Head of the Melbourne Dental School, commencing in January 2020.

Alastair is currently a Professor of Tissue Engineering and Bone Biology and Head of the School of Dentistry at Cardiff University in the UK. In the School of Dentistry, he was Vice-Dean for International from 2013–2015 and Vice-Dean, Research and International between 2015–2017.

Prior to this role he was Director of the Cardiff Institute for Tissue Engineering and Repair (CITER), a cross-university research network where he developed collaborative research environments, scholarships, awards and placements.

He obtained his BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Wales in 1993, and completed his PhD in Oral Biology and Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Birmingham in 1997. Following postdoctoral research in Birmingham (including research visits at the University of Michigan and University of Lyon), he was appointed to a Lectureship in Oral Biology at the School of Dentistry in 2000.

An accomplished scholar, Alastair has led his own research group since 2005 at Cardiff University. He has been awarded over £4.5 million in external research funding, published over 70 peer-reviewed research publications and seven book chapters, and has a current h-index of 32. He holds Visiting Professorships at the Airforce Medical University, Xi’an, China Medical University and University College Cork, Ireland.

A past president of the International Association for Dental Research Pulp Biology and Regeneration Research Group, Alastair is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (UK), the Management Committee of the British Society for Oral and Dental Research and the Management Committee of the Association of Science Educators in Dentistry. He is also a panel member of the NC3Rs Grants Assessment and the Eureka Eurostars funding program of the European Union.

“Melbourne Dental School has an established background in high-quality research, education and clinical training. I am delighted to be joining a team with such a strong research focus as well as highly regarded education. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with the talented staff of the Melbourne Dental School to help them continue to make an impact nationally and internationally and also work closely with my fellow Heads of School and Faculty colleagues in MDS” says Alastair.

The Faculty offers our sincere thanks to outgoing Head of School Professor Mike Morgan. Mike came to the University as a lecturer in 1988, became Deputy Head of the Melbourne Dental School in 1999, was appointed the Colgate Chair of Population Oral Health in 2006, and has been an inspirational Head of School since 2014. We are pleased to congratulate him and wish him all the very best in his new role as Dean of the Faulty of Dentistry at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Mike will be given a proper send-off before he departs on his next adventure.