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  5. Peggy Wilmoth

Peggy Wilmoth, PhD, MSS, RN, FAAN; Major General, US Army (retired)

Professor

919.966.9905
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Nursing
Campus Box #7460
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7460

Dr. Wilmoth joined the faculty of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in August 2017 as the inaugural executive vice dean and as associate dean for academic affairs, and she served as interim dean from January to July of 2022. Previously she was the inaugural dean of the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing and Health Professions where she led the transformation of the educational programming in the health professions.

She is an experienced educator, with 45 years’ experience in higher education, where she has taught across all levels of nursing education. She was an early leader in examining the impact of cancer and other chronic illnesses on intimacy and sexuality. Her more recent work has examined the well-being of reserve-connected military children, psychiatric evacuation from the theater of war and deployment-related policy. She has over 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books. She is an experienced leader in interprofessional training and education in both the civilian and military communities. Dr. Wilmoth was the 2023-24 American Academy of Nursing, American Nurses Association and American Nurses Foundation Distinguished-Scholar-in-Residence at the National Academy of Medicine. In 2009 she was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow where she had the opportunity to work in the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Honorable Nancy Pelosi during the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

General Wilmoth had a concurrent career in the U.S. Army Reserve where she commanded units of various size and complexity, including serving as the first nurse and female commanding general of a medical brigade with responsibility for wartime readiness of all the U.S. Army Reserve medical assets in the Southeastern United States, including Puerto Rico. In her final assignment, she was promoted to Major General and assigned to the Office of the Surgeon General, US Army, where she served as the Deputy Surgeon General for the Army Reserve. She was the first female and nurse to serve as Deputy Surgeon General for the Army Reserve. Her prior assignment was in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Health Affairs, where she led the transformation of the Military Health System’s research processes, evaluation of psychiatric evacuations from the theater of operations and the processes involved with Reserve Component Medical Readiness. She was appointed by the Secretary of the Army to serve for two terms on the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee. General Wilmoth is the recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, the Expert Field Medical Badge, and holds the ‘9A’ Proficiency Designator in Medical-Surgical Nursing awarded by The Surgeon General, U.S. Army.

News

American Academy of Nursing Announces Margaret C. Wilmoth as the National Academy of Medicine Distinguished Nurse Scholar-in-Residence