Lois Cohen, PhD

Dr. Lois Cohen began her career with a Ph.D. in sociology, joining what is now the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1964. As a social scientist, she became part of a small team that gave rise to the field of social and behavioral science research in dentistry. Dr. Cohen retired in 2006 after serving as Associate Director for International Health and previously as director of the Division of Extramural Research , National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).  She is currently the Paul G. Rogers Ambassador for Global Health Research and a consultant to the NIDCR and advisor to several U.S. and international institutions and organizations focused on global oral health, including the World Health Organization.

Throughout her career, Dr. Cohen coordinated and facilitated all intramural and extramural international research activities, as well as staff involvement in multi-lateral, bilateral and organizational representation abroad. She served as the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Dental & Craniofacial Research, which was established in 1980 under the umbrella of the NIDR, and renamed NIDCR in 1998. She co-directed the first large-scale international collaborative studies of oral health systems with the late Dr. David E. Barmes, and co-chaired the former Friends of OSAP (formed in 2006) with Nancy Tomich Zapp.

Currently, she serves on the Boards of several organizations, including the Edw. B. Shils Entrepreneurial Fund and the Alliance for Oral Health Across Borders and on the advisory groups for the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and as a member of the External International Advisory Group for the Global Health Research Programme on Oral Health, funded by the National Institute of Health Research in the United Kingdom. As a research sociologist whose research and publications in oral health science has spanned 60 years, her work as been central to linking the behavioral and social sciences with issues of public health significance nationally and internationally.