Congratulations to Sharon Cooper, Ph.D., R.D.H., M.S., M.Ed., for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation in Higher Education Administration, “Dental Faculty Perceptions of Workplace Environment and Career Satisfaction at the University of Florida College of Dentistry.” She will graduate on December 18.
Cooper’s dissertation research investigated faculty perceptions of the academic work environment that best predicted career satisfaction at the College of Dentistry, and that would affect the recruitment and retention of dental faculty at the college. Phillip Clark, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the College of Education, served as her graduate committee chairperson; the committee included College of Dentistry Dean Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H.; Linda Behar-Horenstein, Ph.D., and Dale Campbell, Ph.D.
Cooper, an associate in the Department of Operative Dentistry and the director of the Oral Health Maintenance Clinic at the University of Florida College of Dentistry, joined the college in 1999 and has also been a member of the Santa Fe Community College Dental Programs Advisory Board since 2001.
She started her undergraduate studies at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, received her Certificate in Dental Hygiene and her bachelor of science in Dental Sciences from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Ky. At the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Cooper earned her master of science in Allied Health Education.