Dr. Melody R. Wilkinson is a nationally and internationally recognized nurse practitioner educator, clinician, scholar, and academic leader whose work advances health equity, rural health, infectious disease care, community-engaged scholarship, and graduate nursing education. An expert in competency-based nurse practitioner education, she develops innovative experiential learning initiatives that prepare advanced practice nurses to address complex health and social challenges in underserved communities.
Dr. Wilkinson has held multiple leadership roles at Georgetown University, including Director of Curriculum and Learning (2022–2023) and Family Nurse Practitioner Program Director (2015–2020). She teaches across graduate nursing programs and provides leadership in faculty development, curriculum innovation, and academic excellence.
From 2020 to 2022, Dr. Wilkinson served as a COVID-19 Clinical Consultant with the CDC Foundation, supporting West Virginia’s statewide pandemic response. She also contributed to clinical and public health efforts addressing an HIV outbreak associated with injection drug use in rural Appalachia. With more than 27 years of nurse practitioner experience, she maintains an active clinical practice in HIV care. Her clinical and scholarly interests include HIV prevention and treatment, infectious diseases, rural health, and emerging public health challenges.
Dr. Wilkinson’s scholarship examines how community-engaged and experiential education influences critical consciousness, leadership development, professional formation, health equity, and community outcomes. She is particularly known for developing and sustaining academic-community partnerships in rural Appalachia that integrate education, service, and scholarship to address community-identified priorities. Her work has resulted in peer-reviewed publications, funded educational and community-engaged initiatives, national and international presentations, and enduring partnerships that connect academic learning with meaningful community impact.
Dr. Wilkinson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Duke University, Master of Science in Nursing from Vanderbilt University, and Bachelor of Science in Nursing from West Virginia University.
Academic Appointment(s)
- Primary
- Professor, SON - Nursing Academic Department