Wos, who has been a longtime support of the university and featured speaker at Elon events, previously served as ambassador to Estonia and is now vice chair of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
Elon University benefactor Dr. Aldona Wos of Greensboro, N.C., has been nominated to serve as U.S. ambassador to Canada by President Donald Trump, the White House announced this week.
Wos is a longtime supporter of the university and has been a speaker at major university events. She delivered the Joseph M. Bryan Distinguished Leadership Lecture at Elon Law in 2007, offered the introduction to the 2009 Fall Convocation speaker, best-selling author Khaled Hosseini, and moderated a question-and-answer session with former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley at the 2019 Fall Convocation.
A retired physician, Wos served as U.S. Ambassador to Estonia under President George W. Bush (2004-2006) and also served as Secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (2013-2015). Her numerous board memberships include The Institute for World Politics, the Council of American Ambassadors, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and the Duke Law Board of Visitors. Dr. Wos has also served on the boards of the United Way of Greater Greensboro, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and the Board of Governors for the University of North Carolina. In 2015, Wos received North Carolina’s highest honor, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
Wos and her husband, Elon Trustee Louis DeJoy, are among Elon’s most generous benefactors. They are founding donors of Elon’s School of Law in Greensboro and have made lead gifts to support scholarships and the Numen Lumen Pavilion, Elon’s multifaith center. In 2009, the couple established the Honorable Aldona Z. Wos, M.D. and Louis DeJoy Scholarship for International Study, which helps students with financial need pursue full-semester international study opportunities.
In October 2018, the Louis DeJoy and Aldona Wos Family Foundation made a gift to the university’s Odyssey Program that will grow to support 12 full scholarships annually.