Ashraf Fouad is a renowned researcher and educator in the field of endodontic microbiology. He has published several of the widely quoted papers in this area in the last few years and has also just started a major, NIH-funded clinical study to investigate the diversity of primary and therapy-resistant endodontic infections, and the predictive value of microbial analysis of the long-term outcome of endodontic treatment. He is Chair of the Department of Endodontics, Prosthodontics and Operative Dentistry at the University of Maryland, where he is also Director of Postgraduate Endodontics.