Dr. Simmer has been appointed as Professor in the Department of Biologic and Material Sciences. He received his DDS degree from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in 1980, and received his PhD in Biochemistry from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1990. He also did post-doctoral training with Dr. Hal Slavkin, at the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology in the University of Southern California School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, California. Before coming to Michigan, Dr. Simmer was an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Dr. Simmer possesses excellent research and teaching credentials. His research interests are in the area of tooth development, enamel and dentin formation, biochemistry and molecular biology of amelogenins, and hypophosphatasia and amelogenesis imperfecta. Dr. Simmer's initial teaching assignment will be in the predoctoral basic science curriculum and at the graduate level in courses dealing with molecular pathogenesis and genetic basis for oral disease.

Dr. Simmer's wife, Jan Hu, has also been appointed in the Orthodontic and Pediatric Department.