Photo Credit: Paul Kennedy

Petra Wilder-Smith, Director of Dentistry of UCI Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic and Professor of Surgery of UCI School of Medicine, was awarded UCI Beall Applied Innovation’s 2023 Innovator of Year during a ceremony held on Monday, April 29, 2024.  Wilder-Smith was recognized for her wide range of global and community collaborations on light-based approaches to oral health, including periodontology, dental-decay-de- and remineralization and biofilm.  Her work spans predictive and diagnostic, as well as therapeutic innovation and applications.

The UCI Innovator Awards Ceremony is an annual event, created by UCI Beall Applied Innovation and hosted at the Cove at UCI to recognize UCI researchers who are working actively to promote commercialization of university research.  The Innovator of Year awarded to Wilder-Smith recognizes distinguished innovators who have demonstrated excellence by developing a breakthrough idea, process or technology and shown its transformational potential to improve lives and create economic value.

About the UCI Beall Applied Innovation Innovator Awards

UCI Beall Applied Innovation, with generous support from Don and Ken Beall, created the annual UCI Innovator Awards to recognize UCI researchers working actively to promote commercialization of university intellectual property, which supports industry growth and moves inventions from the lab to market to benefit humankind.

Click here to learn more about Petra Wilder-Smith.

Click here to visit the UCI Beall Applied Innovation website and learn more about the 2023 Innovator Award recipients.