Who She Is:
Rebecca Wilder spent 44 years at the University of North Carolina Adams School of Dentistry building something the dental hygiene profession had never had before: a rigorous academic infrastructure to support it. She became the university's first dean for professional development and faculty affairs, led the Master of Science in Dental Hygiene Education Program, and served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Dental Hygiene, the profession's leading peer-reviewed publication. Her scholarship focused on periodontal disease, tobacco cessation, and the education of future dental hygiene faculty, and she mentored generations of students who went on to lead programs, conduct research, and shape the profession across the country. When she retired in April 2025 after more than four decades of service, colleagues described her as someone who had fundamentally changed what it meant to become a dental hygienist at the highest levels of the field. The students she trained, and the students they trained, carry her influence into every corner of the profession.
Why She Matters:
For four decades, Wilder made the case that dental hygiene deserved the same level of academic seriousness as any other healthcare profession. The research she produced, the faculty she developed, and the educational standards she helped establish raised the bar for what dental hygiene programs across the country were expected to accomplish. Her work in the Journal of Dental Hygiene helped build the evidence base the profession draws on to argue for an expanded scope of practice, greater integration into healthcare teams, and recognition as a clinical discipline in its own right. Her story reminds anyone entering this field that the most lasting contributions are often made quietly, over decades, in a classroom or a laboratory rather than on a public stage.
