Dr. Consuelo H. Wilkins is an internationally recognized physician-scientist leader in health equity research whose research focuses on integrating social, cultural, and environmental factors into clinical and translational research. Dr. Wilkins is a Professor of Medicine and Senior Vice President of Health Equity at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is a widely-recognized thought leader in health equity and community engagement.
Among Dr. Wilkins many outstanding contributions to science is her prescient focus on engaging racial and ethnic minority communities, using implementation science methodologies in the design and conduct of clinical research. Throughout her career, Dr. Wilkins has pioneered efforts to move the academic and clinical research enterprise to transform approaches to clinical research design by embedding participant and community engagement in every aspect of biomedical discovery. Dr. Wilkins, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, has published 100+ papers on her research.
Dr. Wilkins' impact is evident in the diversity of her research funding, which includes being PI of multiple large NIH research center awards: the Vanderbilt-Miami-Meharry Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health, the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, the Center for Improving Clinical Trial Education Recruitment and Enrollment at CTSA Hubs. She has also been PI of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award on measuring and engendering trust in healthcare among African American men and a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Award on Improving Patient Engagement and Understanding Its Impact on Research.
Dr. Wilkins earned a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Doctorate in Medicine from Howard University and a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed residency in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and a fellowship in Geriatrics at Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University Medical Center.
