M. Roy Wilson

M. Roy Wilson is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Opthamology at Wayne State University, where he served as President from 2012 to 2023. His accomplishments as President include doubling extramural research funding awards, expanding the campus footprint, and creating the Office of Multicultural Student Engagement. He also launched a successful initiative to improve graduation rate, which saw a 21-point improvement over 6 years, with gains especially pronounced among first-generation, low income and minority students.

Prior to his appointment at Wayne State, Wilson was deputy director for strategic scientific planning and program coordination at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health. He also served as dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for health sciences at Creighton University, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, chancellor of the University of Colorado Denver and chair of the Board of Directors of University of Colorado Hospital, and Chair of the Board of Directors of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.

As a scholar, Wilson’s research Dr. Wilson's research has focused on glaucoma and blindness in populations from the Caribbean to West Africa. He holds elected memberships in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the International Glaucoma Research Society and the American Ophthalmological Society. Dr. Wilson received his undergraduate degree from Allegheny College, an M.S. in epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.