The School’s New Leader

Jacques Nör brings a wide-ranging diversity of experience to role of Dean

Dr. Jacques Nör’s time at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry has been a steady progression since he first arrived as a graduate student in 1992.

He came to U-M after seven years as a general practice dentist in his native Brazil. He expected that he would return to his thriving practice there, but instead his career path stayed on track at the School of Dentistry.

Nör shares pointers about a procedure in

a Sim Lab session earlier this fall. Nör

will continue to teach, though on a more

limited basis, in his new role as dean.

The abridged summary of this three decades at the school:

• Master’s degree in pediatric dentistry.

• PhD in Oral Health Sciences.

• Clinical instructor.

• Assistant, associate and full professor teaching in both predoctoral and graduate courses.

• U-M faculty appointments in biomedical engineering and otolaryngology.

• A published and award-winning research scientist in cancer biology and dental tissue regeneration, with 20-plus years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health.

• Chair of the Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics Department.

• Numerous other examples of leadership and mentorship at many levels, from the dental school and university to national and international professional associations.

With that background as a foundation, Nör added a new appointment in August –as the school’s 15th dean since it was founded in 1875.

After a comprehensive national search that produced five finalists, Nör was recommended for the position in June by U-M Provost Laurie McCauley, the dental school’s previous dean, with approval of the university’s Board of Regents. His renewable 5-year term began Aug. 1.

Nör discussed his gratitude for the appointment when he delivered the school’s annual State of the School presentation in late October. “When I arrived here 31 years ago as a graduate student in pediatric dentistry, I would never have imagined that I would have this honor to serve as the dean of our school,” Nör told faculty and staff gathered in Kellogg Auditorium. “I appreciate your support and your trust. I’ll do my very best to deserve your trust and to deserve this honor of serving as dean.”

Provost McCauley cited Nör’s breadth of academic excellence in announcing his selection. “Dr. Nör is an accomplished scholar in the best Michigan tradition,” she said. “As an internationally recognized and award-winning researcher with an extensive teaching portfolio, Dr. Nör has distinguished himself along multiple dimensions of our university’s core mission. His demonstrated commitments as a clinician-scientist and academic leader hold great promise for his impact on the School of Dentistry.”

In presentations and interviews since his appointment, Nör has described his interest in the dean position as a way of sharing his gratitude and paying back the School of Dentistry for its support and the professional advancements it made possible.

“I am fully committed to make the best I can of this opportunity and really make an impact on student education, patient care and research here,” he said. “This is not for my own ego. This is because I got so much from this school and I had so many opportunities. To be a faculty member at this school is such a privilege. This is a way to pay back and really try to do the best that I can. But I know that I cannot do it alone. I’m going to need a lot of help from everybody here to make it work.”

Faculty member Dr. Peter Polverini, the Jonathan Taft Distinguished University Professor of Dentistry, understands the wide-ranging demands of being dean because he held the post from 2003-13, after serving three years in the same role at the University of Minnesota. Polverini has been a mentor for Nör for nearly 30 years, starting when Nör worked in Polverini’s lab as a PhD student and continuing as Nör moved through various positions at the school. Polverini said the new dean’s intellect, personality and commitment are well-suited for the job.

“He’s great to work with, a very collaborative sort of guy,” Polverini said. “For me, it was just great having him in the laboratory. His demeanor was excellent, he worked hard. He’s somebody who was not easily flustered and I think that’s good for his new job because certainly there will be many instances where decisions will be difficult. You know where he stands on any one issue, there’s nothing hidden. He makes it very clear, but he does it in a way that is both direct but polite, and I think that’s important for that position.”

Another important aspect of Nör’s background, Polverini said, is its breadth, starting as a general dentist who eventually specialized in pediatric dentistry, then moved into clinical teaching and expanded his career into scientific research. He said Nör can draw on all those experiences as he navigates the wide-ranging needs of the school.

“As dean, sometimes you have to go from experience and your gut feeling,” Polverini said. “He’s going to be dealing with people who are like-minded with him and with those on the other side of the spectrum. He has been in the trenches as a practicing dentist. He’s gone through the gauntlet in the academic environment and risen through the ranks. So I think he sees all aspects of what it takes to be successful, not only as an individual faculty member but also as a dean.”

Advancing tradition

Already recognized as one of the top dental schools in the world, the School of Dentistry must continue to call on its tradition of leadership and excellence to shape dentistry and dental education in coming decades, Nör said. There are many challenges and opportunities ahead as the profession undergoes rapid change in areas such as digital dentistry, learning health systems and regenerative dentistry, to name a few. “The future is full of promise for improving dental education and clinical care,” he said. “Our commitment is to turn out the bestprepared dental and dental hygiene graduates in America while breaking new ground in scientific research into prevention of dental disease, along with advances in restorative/ regenerative dentistry, cancer therapeutics and other oral health areas.”

In his State of the School presentation, Nör noted that his tenure as dean is beginning at a time of revitalization for the school. The disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have largely faded away, and the school’s now-completed Blue Renew renovation and expansion project has created an inviting and innovative new workspace with updated, state-of-the-art equipment. “Now it is time to refocus our efforts and make a commitment as a community to support each other, to help each other, to stay together,” Nör said. With that emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, Nör is identifying areas of emphasis among the wide-reaching and complex responsibilities of the school. Among his early priorities:

• Improve the recruitment of patients by revamping the process of patient admission to reduce wait lists and provide faster turnaround for appointment requests, particularly for emergencies and routine first visits for predoctoral students. Design marketing to reinforce that the dental school provides world-class dental care.

• Continually enhance the quality of clinical experiences in the predoctoral curriculum. Improve discipline-focused and interdisciplinary calibration of preclinical and clinical faculty. Expand digital dentistry, 3-D printing and in-house CAD/CAM services in predoc clinics, including same-day delivery using in-house manufacturing.

• Recruit and retain outstanding faculty at a time when the national trend is an increase in faculty openings at dental schools. Provide excellent start-up packages and lab space, and a commitment for faculty to have protected time for research.

• Support the well-being, professional development and retention of staff.

• Contribute to the evolving research into Learning Health Systems that systematically capture and analyze data on patient conditions, treatment and outcomes as the ultimate, evidence-based way of improving patient care.

• Continue to advance the school’s strong and longstanding commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

• Explore innovative ways to increase the school’s student scholarship program to help reduce student debt.

To advance all of the school’s operations and initiatives, Nör emphasizes that “excellence is achieved when we invest in people and work together toward a shared goal.” He is an adherent of the “Servant Leadership” philosophy promoted by Robert Greenleaf, an author and thought leader in organizational management in the 1960s and’70s. The concept advocates that leaders should focus on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong, in effect becoming servants to the organization, its members and their needs, which in turn strengthens the organization.

Nör said the dental school is a diverse community of people that he plans to celebrate and support with a culture of collaboration, collegiality and helpfulness based on empathy and respect. He said integrity, professionalism and accountability ensure ethical decision-making, while transparent communication strengthens relationships. Problem-solving and discussions of priorities must challenge existing knowledge, which in turn fosters discovery.

Career path origins

Dean Nör’s interest in dentistry traces to his childhood in Porto Alegre, a city of more than 4 million in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the far south of Brazil.

Neither of his parents went beyond elementary education, but they understood the value of higher education and believed it was the best inheritance they could leave Jacques and his two older siblings, a brother and sister. Their mother was a homemaker and their father demonstrated his work ethic during 37 years as the sacristan of a Lutheran church.

The family lived next to the church, so as a child Jacques frequently played there. From an early age he remembers feeling empathy for other people and that perhaps his calling was to serve others. Instead of becoming a pastor like his brother, however, he considered dentistry. His maternal grandfather, who died before Jacques was born, had been a dentist. And a cousin was in dental school when Jacques was in high school deciding on a career. When Jacques visited his cousin at dental school, he liked what he saw and decided to follow that path. “Being able to help people in pain was something that appealed to me,” he remembers.

In Brazil, students go directly from high school to dental school. By the time Jacques was in dental school at the branch of Federal University in his hometown, his cousin was in practice, providing a second place to learn about dentistry. On weekends and during summers, Jacques would be at the practice, learning how to make temporaries and dentures in the lab, among other procedures. “I owe my cousin a lot,” he says.

The new Dr. Nör finished dental school at age 21 and opened his practice at age 22 in Taquara, a city of about 55,000 people near Porto Alegre. The practice grew steadily from 1986 to 1992, allowing Nör to add an associate as the patient base eventually reached 4,000 people. It was a highly successful practice and Nör enjoyed it, but after several years he decided to make a change. “Because I graduated from dental school so early, at some point I realized it was going to be a long, long journey doing the same routine,” he said. “I decided it was the right time to specialize. Even though I was doing general dentistry, I was seeing lots of children in my practice and enjoyed that part of it, so I decided to apply to pediatric dentistry programs in the U.S.”

In 1990, Nör interviewed at four U.S. dental schools, including U-M where Dr. Paul Loos was then the director of the pediatric dentistry program. Loos offered Nör a spot in the program and he spent the next two years earning his master’s degree. It was a heady time for the young dentist from Brazil, who was meeting and learning from U-M faculty members who had written some of the textbooks he had used in dental school. Nör had expected he would return to Brazil to practice in his newly acquired specialty, but at U-M he encountered another aspect of dentistry and higher education that appealed to him – scientific research. As he worked on his master’s thesis with his faculty mentor Dr. Robert Feigal, he tackled a problem that he had encountered in his dental practice. Bonding materials and methods at that time were inferior, often failing after a relatively short period of time. Nör’s master’s research into bonding composite resins to tooth structure was published in the Journal of Dental Research and Pediatric Dentistry.

Faculty member Dr. James McNamara took notice of Nör’s academic and research interests and encouraged him to apply for a new degree program that the dental school was starting the next year – the PhD in Oral Health Sciences. The advance notice allowed Nör to reconsider his initial plan to return to Brazil after earning his MS. He decided the PhD program was too good of an opportunity to pass up and he was accepted, becoming one of four students in the first cohort of the program, now in its 29th year.

Expanding into research

Over the four and a half years Nör worked on his PhD, he was part of the Peter Polverini lab investigating the mechanisms of cancer biology. The high level of the lab’s research, plus the importance of advancing the scientific understanding of such a deadly disease, marked a turning point for Nör. He realized that research would need to be part of his career track. After completing his PhD, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer cell biology at Michigan Medicine with Dr. Gabriel Nunez, a leading researcher in the fields of cancer cell apoptosis and Crohn’s Disease, which causes chronic intestinal inflammation.

Like working with Polverini, working as a post-doc reinforced the importance of linking research and clinical care as Nunez broke ground in understanding Crohn’s. “The laboratory was buzzing. It was a really exciting place to work,” Nör said. “That was critical to me about the time I was starting as a faculty member at the dental school, to see how impactful research can improve people’s lives.”

As Nör made his dental school ascent from instructor and adjunct up through the professor ranks, he carved out his own niche in cancer research by focusing on salivary gland cancer. He added a second emphasis on dental pulp tissue regeneration. Both areas include a focus on the varied roles of stem cells – harmful in cancer and beneficial in regeneration. Over the years, his research in both areas was published in significant journals and he earned major grants from various sources. Nör’s lab has received funding from many sources, but perhaps the best indication of the quality and impact of his research is the fact that his laboratory has been continuously funded by National Institutes of Health for the last 20 years. Even as his research footprint at the dental school expanded and the number of research grants and awards increased, Nör continued both his didactic and clinical teaching duties. He doesn’t agree with the school of thought that an academic should be either a researcher or a clinician. “Early on, clinical dentistry was always the most important thing for me. That was what I was trained for and I really enjoyed doing it,” he said. “But as I got into research, I also enjoyed that challenge and realized it is critical for improving clinical care. I think that you can absolutely do both. Being a clinician helps in our research because it gives purpose to our work. We understand clinically where the problems are, and then, as a researcher, you have the opportunity to try to solve those problems. The relationship between the clinic and the research has to be there to make the research impactful in improving oral health and the survival of patients with cancer.”

The importance of leadership

The U-M dental school’s high standing and influence in the profession of dentistry was experienced by Nör in 2012 when he was asked by U-M Provost Philip Hanlon to chair the search committee for a new dean as Peter Polverini completed his second term. During the process that eventually named Laurie McCauley as Dean in 2013, Nör said his interaction with the school community at large, the search committee and the Provost’s Office was an enlightening experience.

“That was the time when I realized the dean has the opportunity to make lasting and impactful changes to the profession,” Nör said. “The dentistry world looks to Michigan. Being the dean of this school, if you make changes here that are positive and that are successful, it has a downstream impact throughout all the world. I’ve been so many other places in the world that I know for a fact that things that happen here will impact other schools and indirectly affect the lives of countless people throughout the world. In my short time as dean, already I’ve had contact from another country looking for help with their curriculum because they want to create a new dental school there. There’s a reason why they asked Michigan for that support. So that makes this job extremely exciting because you have this opportunity to not only influence your own school but have a strong influence in how dentistry is taught throughout the world. That’s a privilege for us at Michigan to be in this position.”

With an eye toward his future career options, Nör accepted a promotion to chair of the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics (CRSE) in 2015, a position he held until his selection as Dean. As one of the largest departments at the dental school, it has a sizable budget, multiple divisions and a large roster of faculty and staff. “Being a chair here is the best way to prepare to become a dean,” he said. “Think about how many people were chairs at Michigan and became extremely successful deans at either this dental school or others. The list is really long. Our decentralized system gives more autonomy to the chairs for financial decisions. The work of a department chair here is like managing a small dental school.”

Earlier in his career, Nör had already accepted leadership positions on boards, committees and sections of national and international dental organizations, and that has continued in recent years. (See related list with this article.) The highest profile position was as president of the American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR, previously known as AADR) from 2021-22. With 3,100 members across the country, it is the largest division of the International Association for Dental Research. He’s published 230-plus peerreviewed publications and has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Dental Research from 2010 to the present. His lengthy CV is rounded out with dozens of dental school and university committees, and long lists of students, researchers and junior faculty he has mentored.

Bringing it all together

As former Dean Peter Polverini noted, Nör has the advantage of a broad background that tracks well with almost every major aspect of the dental school, beginning with his general dentistry practice, then moving to graduate studies and a PhD in Oral Health Sciences, followed by many years of research prowess.

Despite that widespread expertise and the wide-ranging demands of being Dean, Nör has emphasized that he will continue to teach both predoctoral and graduate classes, though probably not as many. On a recent day, as he was manning a bench in the D1 Sim Lab, at times as many as four or five dental students gathered around to listen to his pointers or moved in close to watch his technique on a mannequin.

“I plan to maintain my clinical teaching duties while serving as dean as a way to stay grounded in the incredibly rewarding area that is our foundation – educating dental students,” he said. “I’ve taken great satisfaction in my work as chair of CRSE over the last eight years and in my research on stem cell biology and salivary gland cancer, which I will continue. However, there is something immensely satisfying in sharing my clinical expertise with first-year students in the Sim Lab in the Dent 519/520 Clinical Foundations courses. Showing a D1 student how to properly hold a handpiece and cut an ideal cavity prep speaks to the essence of our teaching mission.”

The pace of being Dean doesn’t allow much time for musing about the past, but in a recent introductory interview Nör sprinkled his conversation with the names of faculty members and mentors who helped him along the three-decade path from graduate student to Dean. Polverini leads the list, along with McCauley, Mistretta, Johnston and too many more to risk an omission. The people he met encouraged him and pointed him to opportunities, one after another.

In his speech to the AADOCR at the end of his term as its president in 2021, Nör said his career story is an international variation of the American Dream. He said he is an example of how a person can start from a simple origin, dream big and work hard, have much help along the way, and become part of a leading institution like the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and president of the AADOCR.

“Once you are given an opportunity to show your work, once you have this opportunity, if you make good use of it, there is a concrete consequence, which is that you have another opportunity,” he said in his recent interview. “I came to U-M for a graduate degree but at each step, there was an openness here to take a chance. Of course, it was what we did with that chance that mattered. There was never an impediment to move forward. Just the opposite. With each opportunity, a new opportunity came up. And that to me is the American Dream.”

“Many times I pinch myself,” Nör said. “The odds are so low when I think about when I was finishing high school or dental school in Brazil. I never imagined that this was going to happen. It was never something I had planned for. It was a consequence of being in the right place at the right time and trying to do the best that I can in an honest and sincere way.”

The personal side of Dean Nör

• Jacques and his wife Silvia have a son Lucas who is a senior in high school.

• Growing up in Brazil, Jacques’ brother and sister were much older so they left home when he was young, which meant he had to entertain himself. He wanted his son’s childhood to be different, so he’s made a concerted effort to spend time with Lucas, playing soccer, basketball, tennis and other activities.

• Jacques played the acoustic guitar and performed with a band in his early 20s. He doesn’t play the guitar much these days.

• Reading non-fiction is a frequent pastime. He’s recently read a biography of Winston Churchill and is reading a book on the history of Cambodia after he visited there last summer.

• Jacques usually travels back to Brazil once a year to see relatives and friends.

Jacques Nör’s Career Highlights

Education

• DDS, 1985, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil

• Pediatric dentistry certificate, 1990, UFRGS

• MS pediatric dentistry, 1994, University of Michigan School of Dentistry

• PhD oral health sciences, 1999, University of Michigan School of Dentistry

• Post-doctoral fellowship in cancer cell biology, 2001, University of Michigan Medical School

• Sabbatical in Intravital imaging, 2014, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Academic appointments

• 1994-95: Clinical instructor, U-M Dept. of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry (OPD)

• 1995-99: Adjunct lecturer, U-M OPD

• 1999-2003: Assistant professor, U-M Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics (CRSE)

• 2003-06: Associate professor with tenure, U-M CRSE; and associate professor of Biomedical Engineering, U-M College of Engineering

• 2006-present: Professor of Dentistry, U-M CRSE

• 2006-21: Professor of Biomedical Engineering, U-M College of Engineering

• 2009-present: Professor of Otolaryngology –Head and Neck Surgery, U-M Medical School

• 2011-present: Donald A. Kerr Collegiate Professor of Dentistry

• 2015-2023: Chair, U-M CRSE

• Aug. 1, 2023: Started 5-year term as Dean, U-M School of Dentistry

Selected leadership positions and awards

• 2023-24 President, Stem Cell Biology Group, International Association for Dental Research (IADR)

• 2021-22, President, American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR)

• 2019-20: Chair, Section on Dentistry & Oral Health Sciences (Section R), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

• 2017: Named Fellow, AADR

• 2013: Named Fellow, AAAS

• 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award, IADR

• 2012-13: President, Pulp Biology and Regeneration Group, IADR

• 2011-16: Co-director of the U-M Head and Neck Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI)

• 2010-present: Associated Editor, Journal of Dental Research (JDR)

• 2010 and 2011: William J. Gies Awards for Biological Research

• 2001: New Dentist-Scientist Award, American Dental Association Health Foundation

• 1999: Hatton Award (1st place) for research from both the IADR and AADR