Consuelo H. Wilkins, MD, MSCI, is a nationally recognized physician-scientist leader in health equity research focused on integrating social, cultural, and environmental factors into clinical and translational research. She is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is Senior Vice President, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, VUMC; and Senior Associate Dean, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. 

Among Dr. Wilkins’ many 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. She 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. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, she has published over 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. As Director of the Engagement Core of the All of Us Research Program (a component of the Precision Medicine Initiative), Dr. Wilkins oversees initiatives that meaningfully engage research participants in the governance, oversight, implementation, and dissemination of the program.

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. 

Prior to joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2012, Dr. Wilkins was an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, with secondary appointments in Psychiatry and Surgery (Public Health Sciences) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She served as the founding Director of the Center for Community Health and Partnerships in the Institute for Public Health, the Co-Director of the Center for Community-Engaged Research in the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, and the Director of “Our Community, Our Health,” a collaborative program with St. Louis University to disseminate culturally relevant health information and facilitate community–academic partnerships to address health disparities.