Community-based dentistry is Dr. Dennis Mitchell's passion and focus. As an assistant professor of clinical dentistry in the departments of Community Health and Periodontics at Columbia University's School of Dental and Oral Surgery, he oversees the school's Harlem component of the Community DentCare Network. In addition to his responsibilities at Columbia, Dr. Mitchell is an attending dentist and director of research and community dentistry at Harlem Hospital Center Department of Dentistry.

Under Dr. Mitchell's direction, Columbia's School of Dental and Oral Surgery is helping improve the dental health of tens of thousands of adults and children in Harlem and northern Manhattan. The school has established numerous community-based dental service programs, a mobile dental center, a medical/dental practice for elderly patients and dental services at two community health centers.

To help increase the number of minority applicants to dental schools, Dr. Mitchell helped Columbia develop a Minority Medical Education Program dental pilot program. The intensive six-week program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is located at 11 medical centers around the country, where 1,200 undergraduate students enroll each summer for basic sciences and MCAT courses. During the past 10 years, the program has had an admissions success rate of 65 percent to medical schools. The Columbia dental pilot program is one of only two that exist nationally for dentistry.

Dr. Mitchell is a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Health Services fellow at Columbia University's Center for Community Health Partnerships. He also is a consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Center for Health and Health Care in Schools.

Dr. Mitchell received his B.A. in neurobiology and behavior from Cornell University, his D.D.S. from Howard University and his M.P.H. from Columbia University. His honors and awards include the National Dental Association's Community Leadership Award, Howard University's College of Dentistry Distinguished Alumni Award, National Dental Honor Society and the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research's Minority Clinical Associate Physician's Award.

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