Dr. Paul Krebsbach has served as the dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry since 2016. He is also a professor of Biosystems and Function.
Dr. Krebsbach did his undergraduate work in Biology at the College of St. Thomas and earned his DDS at the University of Minnesota before getting his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
Dr. Krebsbach’s research focuses on the cell and molecular biology of mineralized tissues and self-renewal of adult and pluripotent stem cells.
Before his appointment as dean at UCLA, Dr. Krebsbach was a professor of Dentistry and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan and served as the Chair of the Department of Biologic and Material Sciences and Division of Prosthodontics.
A Daily Bruin article from July 5, 2020 reported that “the UCLA School of Dentistry failed to provide its faculty and residents sufficient protection against COVID-19 by violating established safety protocols and guidelines.” In the article, residents and faculty members criticized the school’s leadership response to the COVID-19 pandemic as “lacking.” Residents told the Daily Bruin that the School of Dentistry’s supply of N95 respirators had expired and that “fit tests” were needed for the new model of 8210 N95 respirators that were ordered to replace them, but only “user seal checks” were required by the administration before exposing the residents to patients. Residents also expressed concerns about the lack of portable HEPA air filtration units like those used by other universities in the UC system during the pandemic. In the article, faculty and residents said the school leadership including Dean Paul Krebsbach “failed to act and even threatened to punish some who spoke out against them.” A resident, who asked to only be identified as “C” because of fear of retaliation, told the Daily Bruin, “at the town hall meeting, a lot of people had the same concerns (as me), and they were getting the same kind of nonchalant response from the dean.”
In 2020, Dr. Krebsbach was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the former Chair of Orthodontics at the UCLA School of Dentistry, Dr. Eric Kang Ting. The lawsuit alleged “Dr. Krebsbach ” embarked on a campaign to drive Dr. Ting, a highly regarded senior professor at the University, out of the University, …to strip him of his position as Chair of the University’s Section of Orthodontics and replaced him with a far more junior professor, … and subjected Dr. Ting to a number of meritless “audits” and “investigations” in an effort to punish him into silence and drive him out of the university, and attacked Dr. Ting for his role as a witness in a Title IX sexual harassment proceeding against Dr. Tetradis.”
Dr. Ting sued Dr. Krebsbach for retaliation, discrimination and harassment.