Dr. Kathryn Atchison, professor of dentistry and vice provost for new collaborative initiatives at UCLA, has been tapped to join the Office of the Director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) in the National Institutes of Health. A faculty member in the UCLA School of Dentistry in the Division of Public Health and Community Dentistry, Atchison began a six-month volunteer role on July 1, to help develop strategies aimed at strengthening NIDCR’s translational pipeline — translating research discoveries into new tools and treatment — and identify potential partnerships between the public and private sectors to help the agency achieve its goals.
Atchison received a D.D.S. degree at Marquette University School of Dentistry and a masters degree in public health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She has substantial experience conducting and leading collaborative multidisciplinary research. She has published extensively on outcomes assessment and quality of care issues, such as perceptions of oral health and the development and evaluation of psychosocial outcome measures, for which she developed the Geriatric/General Oral Health Assessment Index.
