Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, Senior Vice President and Senior Associate Dean for Community Health and Engagement at Vanderbilt Health and holder of the Mildred Thornton Stahlman Chair in Rural Health, has been named a 2026 recipient of the Duke Medical Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in recognition of her visionary leadership and national impact in clinical and translational research.
Wilkins completed her residency training in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center and has built a career that has fundamentally reshaped how academic medicine partners with communities. A tenured Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, she has led more than $150 million in federally funded studies and helped establish national standards for stakeholder engagement, clinical trial design, and inclusive research participation.
She led the expansive team effort to change how investigators partner with patients and communities from the earliest stages of study design, moving from a community review board to a Community Engagement Studio model, now widely adopted across research institutions. Her leadership in the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program and the Trial Innovation Network established enduring frameworks for embedding participant voices into governance, design and implementation. She has more than 170 peer-reviewed publications, with scholarship recognized as foundational in trust building, data sharing, and research practice.
An internationally recognized expert in Alzheimer’s disease research, Wilkins served as a clinical investigator in Washington University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center before joining VH in 2012. Her work spans the full translational spectrum, with particular focus on engaging historically underserved populations in research design and conduct.
The breadth of her influence extends to national policy. In 2021, Wilkins testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where she outlined a framework for improving the nation’s COVID-19 response — calling for stronger data collection, community-driven solutions, and sustained commitment to long-term care and research.
Wilkins was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 and serves as Section 12 chair. She was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2022 and received the ASCI’s Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Award in 2025. Earlier in her career, Wilkins was named a 2006 Beeson Scholar while at Washington University.
Wilkins is a committed educator and spearheaded additions to the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine curriculum and has mentored hundreds of trainees and faculty across her career. She earned her BS in microbiology and MD from Howard University and earned her Master of Science in Clinical Investigation from Washington University School of Medicine. Wilkins completed a fellowship in geriatric medicine at Washington University/Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
