Professor Rekow, Executive Dean of King's College London's Dental Institute to retire
Professor Dianne Rekow, Executive Dean of King’s College London’s Dental Institute announced on Thursday 15 September, 2016 that she will be retiring from her position at the end of this calendar year.
Many notable achievements have been realised by the Dental Institute under the five years of Professor Rekow’s leadership. The Faculty has improved its QS World University rankings from 7th in 2015 (the first year dentistry was differentiated from other health schools) to 4th in the world and 1st in the UK in 2016.
Her personal goal to achieve a balanced gender representation at the Faculty has seen many women move into leadership positions during the last five years, and culminated with the Dental Institute earning Athena SWAN silver on its first application in 2015.
Professor Rekow has enabled the Faculty pursue entrepreneurial and innovative activities. The Faculty created an Innovation and Translation Centre, enabling interdisciplinary collaborations to secure viable innovation and sustainable impacts. A collaboration with BYBO, one of China’s largest dental groups was established, initiating revenue promising activities. She oversaw the creation of an Advance Technology Centre where over £1 million worth of dental equipment has been donated, bringing the latest digital dental systems to the Faculty’s clinics for students to use.
“My time working at the Dental Institute has been vastly rewarding. I have enjoyed watching, and hopefully enabling successes of an enormously talented academic, clinical and professional services staff, and relished the accomplishments of our students. However after long personal soul searching, I have elected to retire from my position as Executive Dean.” explains Professor Rekow.
The Dental Institute will soon begin its search for the next Executive Dean. In the meantime, during Professor Rekow’s recovery from surgery and from 1 October, Professor Mark Woolford, the current Dean of Education at the Dental Institute will take on the role of Interim Dean.
Notes to editors
For more information on the Dental Institute at King’s College London please contact Laura Shepherd, Senior Communications Officer on +44 (0) 207 118 1163 or laura.2.shepherd@kcl.ac.uk