Mary Papandreas
Mary Papandreas is a second-year Doctor of Dental Medicine candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. She graduated from Penn State with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Biomedical Engineering. She then worked for as a Management Consultant in Healthcare M&A at PricewaterhouseCoopers before returning to dental school. She believes that the Health Services Research Dental Fellowship is the perfect culmination of her passion and experience in health care and business. Her technical academic background, professional experience in client services, and passion for serving her community through health care uniquely poise her to conduct insightful health services research.
Papandreas worked with Professor Christian Terwiesch (Andrew M. Heller Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Co-Director of Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management; PhD) on a project identifying and analyzing operational efficiencies and value drivers in dental practices. She developed a financial model and sensitivity analysis highlighting key findings. She plans to use this model to drive health equity efforts and identify ways to incentivize dental practices to open in Health Profession Shortage Areas.
In dental school, Papandreas serves on Student Council as the Treasurer for the Class of 2026 and is the Social Media Manager for the Nontraditional Students Club. She is also involved in Penn Dental Women’s Network as an active mentor to undergraduate pre-dental students and as a recent student panelist for Women’s History Month. She looks forward to returning to Penn State this summer to volunteer at the PA Special Olympics through Penn’s American Academy of Developmental Medicine & Dentistry Club.