William Henry ‘Bill’ Bowen was chairman of the center for oral biology at the University of Rochester, New York. He was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland, the son of two doctors, William and Pauline Bowen, and studied dentistry at the National University of Ireland. After qualifying, he moved to Rochester, New York for his residency at the Eastman Dental Center and studied for a masters degree at the school of medicine and dentistry at the University of Rochester. He then went to London for doctoral work on oral bacteriology and cariology (the study of dental caries) at the University of London. He had a private dental practice in London from 1955. He was a Nuffield Foundation fellow from 1962 to 1965, then a senior research fellow until 1969. From 1969 to 1973 he was a Sir Wilfred Fish fellow. In 1974 he became a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He subsequently returned to the United States, as the chief of the caries prevention and the research branch of the national caries program at the National Institute for Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. In 1982, he returned to the University of Rochester, as the Margaret and Cy Welcher professor of dental research and professor of microbiology and immunology in the school of medicine and dentistry. He wrote more than 300 articles, books and book chapters. He was a consultant on oral health and caries prevention for numerous countries, for the Food and Drug Administration, the Public Health Service, the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and American Dental Services. He was president of the American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research from 1981 to 1982 and president of the International Association for Dental Research from 1990 to 1991. In 2006 he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award of the University of Rochester. He also received the American Association for Dental Research Irwin D Mandel Distinguished Mentoring Award in 2015. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the European Organisation for Caries Research and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Bowen died on 15 November 2016 at the age of 82. He was survived by his wife Carole (née Barnes), children William, Kevin, Katherine, Deirdre and David and 11 grandchildren.