Rate My Professor Paul Cooper

Professor Paul Cooper serves as Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and John Arnaud Bell Professor of Oral Biology in the Department of Oral Sciences at the University of Otago, positions he has held since July 2022 and November 2019, respectively. Prior to joining Otago, he was Professor of Oral Biology, Director of Research, and Deputy Head of School at the School of Dentistry, University of Birmingham, where he also served as Deputy Director of Research in the Institute of Clinical Sciences. He is the only individual to have worked in the two newest dental schools globally: those at Otago and Birmingham. Under his leadership at Birmingham, the school achieved the top national ranking for research outputs in the Research Excellence Framework 2014.

Professor Cooper's research specializes in oral basic sciences with clinical translation in dentistry, encompassing dental pulp defence and repair mechanisms, inflammation-regeneration interplay in the dentine-pulp complex, stem cell and tissue engineering, biomaterials, oral epithelial biology, pulp biology, endodontics, and periodontology. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and ten book chapters, securing more than $10 million in external research funding and supervising dozens of PhD students. Notable publications include 'Dental pulp defence and repair mechanisms in dental caries' (2015, Mediators of Inflammation, 650 citations), 'Inflammation–regeneration interplay in the dentine–pulp complex' (2010, Journal of Dentistry, 517 citations), 'Bone grafts and substitutes in dentistry: a review of current trends and developments' (2021, Molecules, 810 citations), and 'Dentine as a bioactive extracellular matrix' (2012, Archives of Oral Biology, 382 citations). His work demonstrates a Scopus h-index of 46. Professor Cooper has received the 2024 International Association for Dental Research (IADR) Distinguished Scientist Award in Pulp Biology and Regeneration and the 2010 IADR Young Investigator Distinguished Scientist Award. He currently holds the presidency of the IADR Pulp Biology and Regeneration Group and maintains strong industry and international collaborations to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics.