Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Communities:

Our Harvard community has lost a legend. Bruce Donoff, the Walter C. Guralnick Distinguished Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine from 1991 to 2019, died Thursday, Dec. 25. He was 83.

I am forwarding the message below sent to the HSDM community by Dean Will Giannobile. I am adding my own reflections here, as Bruce played a key role as advisor to me during the early years of my deanship.

Bruce was an extraordinary leader of the dental school through three decades of progress and change. He remained passionately committed to the integration of oral medicine and general medicine — in his words, “reuniting the mouth with the rest of the body” — and was a fierce advocate for the importance of oral health to public health. A particularly meaningful tribute to Bruce is the sheer number of dental school deans around the world who recognize him as an innovator and who can also say that they received their degrees from HSDM.

During his remarkable tenure, Bruce made major research contributions in the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery, with interests in wound healing, bone graft survival, sensory nerve repair, and oral cancer. A skilled educator and mentor, he reshaped the dental curriculum and ensured that today’s dental students spend time working in community health centers as part of their training.

Bruce always stressed the importance of scientific inquiry in dental education. He led the charge to create more space for laboratories at HSDM and was successful in nearly doubling the school’s footprint with the opening of the Research and Education Building in 2004. He also expanded the scope of the school’s international presence, helping to launch Rwanda’s first dental school and assisting dental schools in China and Vietnam with curriculum development and workforce training.

Born May 11, 1942, in New York City, Bruce attended Brooklyn College as an undergraduate. He received his DMD from HSDM in 1967 and his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1973. His professional career was anchored within Harvard’s Faculty of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, where he began as an intern in 1967 and became chair and chief of service in 1983.

Bruce published more than 100 papers, authored textbooks, served on the editorial boards of leading journals, lectured worldwide, and received numerous awards, including the Shils-Meskin award for leadership in the dental profession in 2014. He served 12 years on the board of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Foundation and was former president of the Friends of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

I send my heartfelt condolences to his wife, Mady, their children Daniel and Elizabeth, and all who knew and loved him.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University

Dear Members of the HSDM Community, 

It brings me great sadness to be in touch with you over the winter break to let you know that we have lost a truly monumental member of our community —former HSDM dean Dr. Bruce Donoff, DMD ’67, MD ’73. Dr. Donoff has had a profound and lasting impact on the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, leading the School for a remarkable 28 years as dean, and then continuing to serve as an active faculty member as the Walter C. Guralnick Distinguished Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He passed away on Thursday, December 25, and is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Mady, and their adult children Daniel and Elizabeth.

Dr. Donoff’s leadership, vision, and tireless dedication to the advancement of dental education transformed this institution. During his tenure as Dean, which spanned from 1991 to 2019, he cultivated a culture of excellence and elevated the School’s prominence in research and dental education. He was not only a renowned academic leader, but also a compassionate and talented clinician, a mentor to generations of students, and a visionary who was a lifelong advocate for the integration of dentistry and medicine. As an alumnus of Harvard’s dental and medical schools, and an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, he viewed oral health as integral to overall health and well-being. With this ethos, he launched the HSDM Initiative to Integrate Oral Health and Medicine, a program that advances the importance of oral and systemic health and continues to this day.

In addition to leading HSDM as its dean, Dr. Donoff’s career included a prominent role at Massachusetts General Hospital where he served as chairman and chief of service in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from 1982 through 1993. He made significant contributions to the specialty through his work in wound healing, bone graft survival, sensory nerve repair, and oral cancer. He published more than one hundred scientific publications, authored textbooks, and lectured worldwide. He also served for more than a decade on the board of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Foundation and was the former president of the Friends of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. He was recognized with numerous honors during his career, including the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons Research Recognition Award, the William J. Gies Foundation Award for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the Alpha Omega Achievement Award and the Distinguished Alumni and Faculty Awards from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

I will personally remember Bruce for his extraordinary warmth, wisdom, and deep sense of purpose. His devotion to HSDM was greatly appreciated by all who knew him. As a valued confidant and advisor, he cared for the continued success of HSDM. He also had tremendous respect for the history of HSDM, and his own legacy is now indelibly woven into that history. His influence will continue to resonate across the Harvard University community and throughout the broader field of dental medicine for generations to come. On behalf of the entire HSDM community, I extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, former students, and all who shared his vision for the School and his love for this community. He will be deeply missed.

Sincerely, 

William V. Giannobile
Dean and A. Lee Loomis, Jr. Professor of Oral Medicine, Infection & Immunity