Dr. Rose Marie Chioni is a native of LaSalle, Illinois. She received her nursing diploma from St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing in Peoria, Illinois, in 1953. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1956 with a B.S.N.Ed., received her M.A. degree in 1958 from the University of Chicago, and was awarded a Ph.D. degree from Ohio State University in 1964. She served on the faculty at Wayne State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prior to joining the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Nursing in 1974. In that same year, she was invited to become a charter fellow of the American Nurses Association's American Academy of Nurses. She was elected the first vice president of the National League for Nursing in 1975. In 1980 she served as president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. At the state level Chioni served as president and vice president of the Virginia State Board of Nursing and in 1983, she became the first chair of the Virginia Society of Professional Nurses.

On December 31, 1988, Dr. Chioni resumed a faculty role at the University of Virginia School of Nursing after fourteen years as Dean and Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing. Under her progressive leadership Virginia's first doctoral program in nursing was begun. Chioni, whose special interests are hospice, gerontology and nursing administration, directed a feasibility study about the possibility of developing a home health program. During her term as Dean many nursing education programs evolved to meet the changes in health care, including care services for the University's Health Sciences Center. Since her retirement in May, 1995, she remains involved in nursing professional organizations and community health-related activities.