Associate Professor Mihiri Silva is a prominent paediatric dentist, educator, and researcher affiliated with the Melbourne Dental School in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She earned her Bachelor of Dental Science (Honours) in 2004, Master of Dental Science in 2012, Doctor of Clinical Dentistry in Paediatric Dentistry in 2013, and PhD in 2019, all from the University of Melbourne. Promoted to Associate Professor in Paediatric Dentistry in 2025, she currently holds the positions of Director of Graduate Research and Director of Research at the Melbourne Dental School. Previously serving as Senior Lecturer and Divisional Lead of Population Health, Cariology and Oral Health, she also maintains appointments as a Clinician-Scientist Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and as Consultant Paediatric Dentist and Research Lead in the Department of Dentistry at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.

Silva’s research centres on paediatric oral health, with a focus on early childhood caries, enamel hypomineralisation, and early life risk factors using large longitudinal cohort studies, data analytics, causal inference, and qualitative co-design methods to develop preventive interventions. Her impactful work includes leading the Infant2Child project, funded by a $1.2 million Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant in 2021 to improve childhood nutrition and prevent tooth decay, and serving as lead investigator in the $7 million MRFF-funded OMIX3 platform advancing oral health research through interdisciplinary collaboration. She holds the Melbourne Children’s Clinician-Scientist Fellowship and received the International Association of Dental Research (IADR) Paediatric Oral Health Faculty Prize in 2024. Key publications encompass 'Genetic and Early-Life Environmental Influences on Dental Caries: A Population-Based Twin Study' (Pediatrics, 2019), 'Dental caries detection in children using intraoral scans and deep learning' (JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2025), and 'Comparative performance of common paediatric patient-reported outcome measures (P-PROMs) across health conditions' (Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2026). Silva contributes to the field as an editorial board member of the European Archives of Paediatric Dentistry and through leadership in professional dental organizations.

Professional Email: mihiri.silva@unimelb.edu.au