Dr. Petra Wilder-Smith is the Director of Dentistry at UCI
Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic and Professor of Surgery at the
UCI School of Medicine. She is also a fellow of UCI’s renowned Chao Family
Comprehensive Cancer Center and a visiting professor at RWTH Aachen University
in Aachen, Germany. For many years, she served as a lecturer at Loma Linda
University School of Dentistry in Loma Linda, California. She earned her
Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Guy’s Hospital, London University, UK, with
honors and distinction in 1983; her Licentiate in Dental Surgery from the Royal
College of Surgeons of Great Britain in 1983; her D.M.D. from Bern University
in Switzerland in 1985; and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Lasers from RWTH Aachen
University in Aachen, Germany, in 1999. She serves on numerous advisory boards,
including the Medical Advisory Board to the Cancer Research and Prevention
Foundation, the Board of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery,
and the Diagnostic Sciences Group for the International Association for Dental
Research (IADR), a prestigious group where she served as a former president.
Her research interests mainly include oral and oropharyngeal cancer,
quantifying the status of oral hard and soft tissues, and biofilm infection.
