Position: Professor & Chair, Section of Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology&Orofacial Pain

Organization: Professor of Dentistry, University of California, Los Angeles

Biography Text: Diana V. Messadi, DDS., MMSc., DMSc Professor & Chair, Section of Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology & Orofacial Pain, UCLA School of Dentistry Dr. Messadi received her Bachelor of Dental Surgery (B.D.S., D.D.S) in 1979 from the Faculty of Dentistry, Alexandria University, Egypt. She earned her Master of Medical Sciences, (MMSc) and a Residency Certificate in Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine in 1985 from Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM), and her Doctor of Medical Sciences in Oral Biology, (DMSc) in 1987, also from Harvard School of Dental Medicine. From 1987-1989, she returned to Egypt and was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Oral Pathology at the Faculty of Dentistry, Alexandria University. In 1989, she returned to the USA and has been a full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Dentistry since then. She served as Chair of the Section of Oral Medicine and Orofacial Pain from 2002-2018. Additionally, she held roles as Associate Dean for Education and Faculty Development from 2015-2018 and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2018-2022. She currently holds the position of Professor and Chair, Section of Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology & Orofacial Pain. Dr. Messadi’s clinical practice is focused on Oral Medicine, and she teaches both predoctoral and postdoctoral students in areas such as oral medicine, oral cancer, and integrating biomedical and dental sciences in disease diagnosis and management. She was a fellow in the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine for 2009/2010 and completed a Medical Education Fellowship from David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (2015-2017). Dr. Messadi has authored over 75 research articles and review papers, 15 book chapters, and 100 abstracts. She is a grant reviewer for NIH, HRSA, and private foundations. She is the recipient of several NIH grants and private foundation grants to study wound healing and oral cancer early detections and chemoprevention, as well as an NIH/NIDCR R25 education grant to train dental students for academic dental careers. Her clinical research is primarily focused on developing new tools for the detection of oral precancerous and cancerous lesions and clinical trials on oral cancer chemoprevention, early detection, oral cancer risk assessment, and optimizing the use of Telemedicine in oral medicine practice.