Peter Kilmarx: The original spark
May/June 2026 | Volume 25 Number 3
Photo courtesy of Peter Kilmarx
Dr. Peter Kilmarx (left) and Dr. Keith Martin, CEO of CUGH
Dr. Peter Kilmarx, a proud Rhode Island native, is a graduate of Dartmouth College. After earning his MD from Dartmouth-Brown's Combined Program in Medicine, he completed both his internal medicine residency and infectious disease clinical fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He’s co-authored papers that use data to track metrics to measure national health research capacity as well as numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He’s a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and serves on the editorial board of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. In retirement, he plans to live in Thailand near his wife’s family, where he will garden and raise fish.
Tracing the origins of his vocation for global health research inevitably leads back to the two-year period Kilmarx spent as a Peace Corps volunteer, when he helped develop fisheries in the DRC (then Zaire)—fisheries, by the way, that are still productive today.
Photo courtesy of Peter KilmarxDr. Peter Kilmarx (left) and Dr. Pai Madukhar, Director of McGill University's Global Health programs
In his foreword to “Through Grateful Eyes: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967,” Kilmarx explains his own decision to join in 1983: “I had fulfilled the premed requirements but was not feeling sufficiently mature to begin medical school. I thought the Peace Corps would give me an opportunity for service, for adventure, and to know myself better.”
Recurring themes in ‘Grateful Eyes’ echo his own ideas and impressions, Kilmarx notes. “The descriptions of culture shock, loneliness, austerity, adventures, and professional and health challenges will resonate with readers who have lived and worked immersed in the culture of a developing country … the writers, like me and most volunteers, grew up during their service to learn about themselves, their role in society, and their potential to make a difference.” After Zaire, he returned home “instilled with the motivation and mindset to complete medical school with honors and embark on an exciting career in global health and government service. And I’ve been privileged to remain involved in various ways with both Dartmouth and the Peace Corps.”
Photo courtesy of Peter Kilmarx
Dr. Peter Kilmarx (left) and Dr. Patty Garcia, former Minister of Health of Peru
In 2025, when Jody Olsen, a former director of the Peace Corps, visited NIH to discuss her memoir, ‘A Million Miles,’ Kilmarx introduced her to the assembled guests. He said then, “You never say ‘former’ Peace Corps volunteer, you say ‘returned’ Peace Corps volunteer, because it's a lifelong commitment.” For Kilmarx, it undoubtedly has been.
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Updated June 16, 2026
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