How do dentists get faculty jobs? Teaching and research careers in dentistry

Academic dentistry is not one job.

The work splits into clinical teaching — BLS's own example is supervising students in dental school clinics — classroom teaching, and research, and each can sit inside a full-time appointment or be stacked on top of a practicing career.

BLS describes both shapes: some dentists teach part time, including supervising students in dental school clinics, while dentists who want to teach or do research full time may need advanced dental training.

The full-time versus part-time distinction matters more than any title.

Full-time roles carry the training expectations described in the next section, plus whatever research or administrative work the department adds.

Part-time clinical teaching draws on the license and experience you already use every day — it is the door that does not require stepping away from practice.

Job titles vary school by school, and a later section shows how state credential lists name academic roles outright.

What stays constant is the split between supervising clinical work, teaching coursework, and doing research — figure out which of the three you actually want before you read a single posting.

Academic dentistry is also just one arrangement on the wider map of dentist careers; this page stays on the faculty slice of it.

Start with the contrast.

General dentists need no additional training after dental school to practice — BLS notes a postdoctoral year is optional unless a state's licensure route requires it.

Teaching is different: BLS says dentists who want to teach or do research full time may need advanced dental training, such as in a postdoctoral program in general dentistry.

Continuing on is a well-worn path: in ADEA's 2025 survey of graduating seniors, 37% planned to continue their education immediately after graduation, and the general practice residency (GPR) was the most frequently applied program and the top first-choice selection among seniors continuing their education.

For specialty departments, the relevant training is the specialty's own — BLS says specialty training is usually a 2- to 4-year residency in an accredited program, and oral and maxillofacial surgery programs typically take 4 to 6 years and may lead to a joint medical degree.

What about a master's or PhD?

In BLS's description, the named requirement is advanced dental training and no degree requirement appears in that text.

Requirements vary by school, department and course, so treat each posting as the source of truth for the role you want.

State credential lists also name academic roles outright.

Indiana's license lookup lists Dental Instructor and Dental Faculty among its searchable types.

Massachusetts' Board of Registration in Dentistry issues limited and faculty dental licenses.

Nebraska's DHHS dentistry page lists a dental faculty credential.

Colorado's roster includes an Academic Dentist credential type, and Michigan's lookup includes clinical-academic, nonclinical-academic and educational limited licenses.

Our research found no current public salary figure for dental faculty.

BLS's dentist wage-by-industry table labels its government figure "government, excluding state and local education and hospitals" — education is carved out of that published figure, so the industry rows do not answer the faculty-pay question.

ADEA, the American Dental Education Association, publishes public vacancy reports that stop at academic year 2015-16, and our research found no current faculty salary survey figures.

Treat any specific dental-faculty salary number you see elsewhere as dated.

The nearest sourced figure is broader: BLS put the May 2025 median for postsecondary health-specialties teachers — all fields, not dental faculty specifically — at $107,310 a year.

Against that, here are the practice-side figures, each labeled by what it actually measures:

Those are different measures — wages versus self-reported net income — and none of them is a dental-faculty number.

The honest comparison for your decision is a specific offer against your own realistic practice earnings.

When you evaluate an offer, count the clinical time built into the role and ask how work in a faculty practice is credited; two full-time faculty jobs can be structured very differently.

Two financing realities sit alongside the salary.

Average education debt was $297,800 among indebted 2025 graduates who responded to ADEA's senior survey — whatever trade-off a given offer involves, it plays out against balances that size.

And the federal loan-repayment program in our research is tied to where you serve patients: for FY 2026, the NHSC Loan Repayment Program offers up to $50,000 for a two-year service obligation to providers assigned to a dental shortage area (a dental HPSA), and its eligible dental disciplines are general and pediatric dentists plus dental hygienists.

Ask schools directly about any institutional loan-relief programs attached to a faculty offer.

Research is the other half of BLS's academic sentence: dentists who want to do research full time may need advanced dental training, such as in a postdoctoral program in general dentistry.

Beyond that, published data thins out fast.

Our sources carry no federal wage series for dental researchers and no sourced count of research positions, so evaluate a research career the way you would any faculty offer — posting by posting.

What to look at when one is in front of you: the split the posting draws between research, teaching and clinical time; how the position is funded across years rather than a single budget cycle; and whether the appointment carries a degree expectation for the research side.

The teaching pay series above — $107,310, all postsecondary health specialties — is the nearest federal number our research found that touches these roles, and its limits are the lesson: it is not dental-specific, and BLS reports annual wages only for that group.

The other shape BLS describes is part time: some dentists teach part time, including supervising students in dental school clinics.

That is the natural entry point while you practice.

The qualification is the license and experience you already use every day, and general dentists need no additional training after dental school to practice — the advanced-training expectation attaches to the full-time track.

If you approach a school, treat it like any professional commitment: ask how clinic supervision schedules against your practice days, what coverage applies while you are supervising, and whether the arrangement can grow into something larger.

Keeping your practice income while adding teaching is exactly what makes part-time faculty work the low-risk way in.

The teaching team around a dental school is bigger than the dentists, too.

Dental hygiene programs employ their own faculty — see hygiene educator jobs for that path — and dental assisting programs employ instructors; DA instructor jobs covers that one.

And if the underlying goal is fewer chairside hours rather than teaching itself, other arrangements, including remote jobs, sit on the same career map.

Calibrate expectations first: practice settings dominate the dentist job market.

By BLS's 2025 breakdown, 78% of dentist jobs were in offices of dentists and 12% were self-employed, while government — a figure that excludes state and local education and hospitals — outpatient care centers and offices of physicians accounted for 2% each.

The openings exist, but they will not fill a job board the way practice openings do, so search targeted channels instead of scrolling.

The channels: each dental school's human-resources page and the department you would teach in; the American Dental Education Association; and the specialty societies relevant to a specialty department.

Schools run on the academic year, so it pays to check department pages regularly rather than once.

The board below is the fast way to see the practice market, where the volume sits by the BLS breakdown above.

For faculty roles, the school's own posting is the authoritative listing.