Dr. M. Roy Wilson

University president and ophthalmologist Dr. M. Roy Wilson was born on November 28, 1953 in Yokohama, Japan. He received his B.S. degree in biology in 1976 from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, his M.D. degree in 1980 from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his M.S. degree in epidemiology in 1990 from the University of California, Los Angeles. Wilson completed his residency in ophthalmology in 1984 and fellowship in glaucoma at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1986, Wilson was named chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) in Los Angeles, California and assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Ophthalmology. In 1993, Wilson was appointed dean of the College of Medicine at CDU. He received accelerated promotions to full professor in 1994 at both CDU and UCLA. In 1998, he was appointed dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for Health Sciences at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2003, Wilson accepted the position of president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas. Wilson then was named chancellor of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, in 2006. In 2011, Wilson was appointed deputy director of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wilson was named the twelfth president of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan in 2013.

Wilson holds invited memberships in the American Ophthalmological Society (the oldest subspecialty society in U.S.), Glaucoma Research Society (worldwide membership limited to 75), Society of Medical Administrators (membership limited to 50) and the National Academy of Medicine. He served on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committees for Dermatologic and Ophthalmic Drugs from 1995 to 1999 and Ophthalmic Devices from 2001 to 2008. From 1994 to 2009, Wilson served on the executive/steering committee of the National Eye Institute’s Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study Clinical Trial and chaired the Data Monitoring and Oversight Committee for both the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study III (2010-2014) and the African American Eye Disease Study (2013-2018). He also served at the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities from 2002-2005, the National Center for Research Resources from 2006-2010, and the Advisory Council to the NIH Director from 2016-2021.

Wilson served on the board of directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) from 2013 to 2019 and was chair from 2017-2018. He has also served on the boards of Association of Academic Health Centers, Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science (chair). Wilson currently serves on the boards of Research!America, Alliance for Health Policy, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Wilson is married to Jacqueline Wilson. They live in Detroit, Michigan. He has two adult children, Presley Wilson and Travis Yoshio Wilson.

Dr. M. Roy Wilson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 15, 2022.