Colonel Vincent Capaldi Receives 2024 Army Surgeon General’s Award for Military Academic Excellence

USU Psychiatry Department Chair Honored with Army Medicine’s Highest Honor 

Colonel (Dr.) Vincent Capaldi was honored November 19, with the prestigious 2024 

Army Surgeon General’s Award for Military Academic Excellence. 

(Photo credit: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research)

November 21, 2024 by Claire Pak

Colonel (Dr.) Vincent Capaldi, chair of the Department of Psychiatry in the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University (USU), was honored November 19, with the prestigious 2024 Army Surgeon General’s Award for Military Academic Excellence, also known as the MG Lewis Aspey Mologne Award. This award -- named in honor of former Commanding General of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a distinguished leader in military medicine — is the Army Surgeon General’s highest honor and recognizes the outstanding leadership of one active-duty officer and one reserve officer in military medicine, as well as their contributions to national academic achievements. 

Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen.

Mary Izaguirre presents the 2024

Army Surgeon General Award for

Military Academic Excellence to 

USU Psychiatry department chair 

Army Col. Vincent Capaldi. 

(Photo by Rod Evans, USU)

Mologne was the first West Point graduate to achieve the rank of general officer in the Army Medical Department. The award in his name celebrates the qualities of leadership, academic excellence, and dedication to advancing military medicine that defined his distinguished career.

Capaldi was selected for the award based on his distinguished career in military medicine and his contributions to advancing psychiatry and behavioral health research. His leadership spans a wide range of roles, including outpatient psychiatry site director at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and director of the Behavioral Biology Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience. He also served as program director for the combined internal medicine and psychiatry residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.  He was assigned to USU in August 2021, and served as vice chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry, where he helped to build the department’s reputation as an internationally recognized leader in behavioral health science education and research. Capaldi was appointed Psychiatry department chair at USU in 2023. He has also served as consultant to the Army Surgeon General in the field of Sleep Medicine.

In addition to his other assignments, Capaldi, who is board certified in general psychiatry, sleep medicine and general internal medicine, deployed to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and the 528th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq.  In 2024, he served as co-lead on a NATO Technical Activity Proposal (TAP) focused on understanding the proliferation of AI and its potential impact on NATO training and education, and traveled to Warsaw, Poland to present at the Warfighter Brain Health Symposium, providing support and consultation for Ukrainian military psychologists and psychiatrists. 

“As a physician, educator, and officer, Dr. Capaldi personifies the ideals and qualities that MG Mologne was known for,” says School of Medicine Dean Dr. Eric Elster. “We are very fortunate to have him at USU, and I am delighted to see him receive this recognition.”