Governor appoints Thomas to N.C. Institute of Medicine
GREENVILLE, N.C. — Gov. Mike Easley has appointed an East Carolina University dean to the North Carolina Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Stephen Thomas, professor and dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences, will serve a five-year term with the institute.
The N.C. IOM is an independent, non-profit organization that serves as a non-political source of policy analysis and advice on statewide
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health care issues. Chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1983, the N.C. IOM’s 100 members are selected from government, education, business, health and legal professions, hospital and health insurance industries, private philanthropy and the public at large. The purpose of the organization is to assure that complex and often controversial health issues are examined and disseminated to public sector officials with decision-making authority.
Thomas became dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences in 2003, having served as interim dean of the school since 2001. Previously, he was chairman, professor and a graduate program director in the school’s Department of Rehabilitation Studies.
Thomas began his career at ECU in 1980 as an assistant professor and director of the graduate program in vocational evaluation, which he was hired to develop. Between 1970 and 1980, he was a graduate program director in the Department of Rehabilitation at the University of Arizona in Tucson, served as an instructor and research development specialist in rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie and began his career as a vocational evaluator with a rehabilitation center at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
He has served as president of state and national rehabilitation associations and chair of his national professional certification commission. He serves on the board of the Eastern Area Health Education Center, the Medical Foundation of ECU and the N.C. Agromedicine Institute. He is secretary of the Southern Association of Allied Health Deans in Academic Health Centers and represents university-based allied health programs on the North Carolina Council on Allied Health. Thomas also serves on the Governor’s State Sector Strategies: Innovative Workforce Policies to Address Worker and Employee Needs.
A Houston native, Thomas received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from Texas Christian University and a master’s and doctorate in rehabilitation from the University of Arizona. He and his wife, Melodie, have two daughters and twin 4-year-old granddaughters.