Margaret B. Dardess is Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Alliances in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Alliances, Margaret works with administration and faculty in the School of Medicine and the General Clinical Research Center to develop and implement interdisciplinary strategic partnerships with the private sector and with other Schools and Centers at Carolina and with other universities. These partnerships will advance and strengthen the research, practice and engagement mission of the School of Medicine and the University.

She joined the University following 15 years at GlaxoSmithKline, where she began in 1987 in the Legal Department and became, in 1996, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and a member of the Board of Directors of Glaxo Wellcome, Inc.  In January 2002 she became Senior Associate Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Adjunct Professor of Health Policy and Administration, and from March 2004 until June 2005 served as Interim Dean.

Dr. Dardess is Chair of the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology and a member of the North Carolina Economic Development Board.  She is President of the GlaxoSmithKline Foundation and a member of the Boards of Directors of the Center for Child and Family Health, the North Carolina Writers’ Network.   

She served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington from 1996 to 2002 and chaired the Board in 2000-2001.  She also has served on the Governor's Business Council on the Arts and Humanities, and on the Boards of Directors of the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, the Epilepsy Foundation of America, the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Meredith College, the Institute of Political Leadership, the Triangle Community Foundation, the Healing Place of Wake County and the Triangle World Affairs Council.  From 2002 until 2007 she also was a Visiting Professor of the Practice at the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. 

A native of Scarsdale, New York she holds a Bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College, a M.A. and Ph.D. in Japanese History from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law.