About Carol

Dr. Carol Hamilton’s grandmother traversed the plains of south Texas in a covered wagon in the late-1880s and settled in San Antonio where Carol grew up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. She graduated from Incarnate Word College (it is University now) despite a harrowing first marriage, chronicled in her memoir, Hitchhiking to Madness.

She remarried and moved with her young daughter to Utah and worked in public health and genetics research before starting medical school at the University of Utah in 1981. The family moved again so she could complete training at Duke University Medical Center in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Carol spent 35 years as a practicing physician doing patient care (mostly HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis), research and teaching at Duke, and has over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific publications and awards for research, public health, and teaching. She spent the last 10 years of her career at FHI360 collaborating with colleagues in Africa and Asia to improve care for people with TB and AIDS. Carol has won numerous prestigious awards including the University of Utah’s 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. She is now an Emeritus Professor at Duke and continues to teach, helping younger doctors find their calling in the field of Infectious Diseases.

Carol considers herself a lifelong learner and now studies oil painting and writing. She is also an avid birder and conservationist and leads the local Audubon chapter. She takes full advantage of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke as a teacher and a student learning about such topics as astrophysics, Soul music and human anthropology. She and her husband have four children and three grandchildren between them and enjoy living in Hillsborough, North Carolina.