Roy H. Stevens is professor of endodontology in the Kornberg School of Dentistry, and an adjunct professor of microbiology in the Katz School of Medicine. He is Kornberg’s Henry Isaiah Dorr professor of research, as well as the director of the Laboratory of Oral Infectious Diseases.  

Prior to his appointment at Temple, Dr. Stevens was an associate professor of endodontology at Columbia University, research assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, and lecturer in the Division of Endodontology at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. His research has primarily focused on oral microbiology, with a specific focus on viruses infecting oral bacteria. In this research, he was the first to isolate a bacterial virus that infects strains of the periodontal pathogen Aggregatibacter (Actinobacillus) actinomycetemcomitans, and he was also the first to discover and isolate bacterial viruses recovered from bacteria found in infected root canals. 

Since coming to Temple, Dr. Stevens has been the recipient of two National Institutes of Health grants, as well as numerous institutional and industrial grants concerned with the study of the oral bacterial viruses that he discovered. His current research interests include investigating the therapeutic potentials of bacterial viruses and their products. In this regard, he has recently published articles describing the antimicrobial effects of genetically engineered bacterial viruses, and the lytic enzymes that they produce, on antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Dr. Stevens received a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1969 from Adelphi University; a master’s degree in microbiology from the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, Rutgers University in 1972; and a doctor of dental surgery degree from Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery in 1976. He completed a General Practice Residency in Dentistry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. From 1977 to 1988, Dr. Stevens worked as a postdoctoral fellow and research assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Dental Medicine, where he pursued several lines of oral microbiological research. During this period, he completed an advanced education program in endodontology at the University of Pennsylvania, for which he received a certificate in endodontology.