Elizabeth Fildes (1st Vice Chair)

EdD, RN, CNE, CARN-AP, APHN-BC

Elizabeth Fildes, EdD, RN, CNE, CARN-AP, APHN-BC, is a Filipino-American nurse leader who demonstrates passion and sustained commitment to improving health outcomes of persons in the US and Philippines who suffer from tobacco use and addictions in all its forms. Her unique, systematic approach has included mobilizing nurses to provide education and therapeutic interventions to improve population health in direct support of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, established to combat the global tobacco epidemic. Her progressive track record spanning almost three decades of addressing tobacco control as an educator, researcher, and international collaborator, reflects successful ventures to seed ideas to healthcare, public health, and policy stakeholders, secure significant funding, and bring cutting edge programs to fruition through partnerships and empowerment of nurses. She has implemented programs that have had an impact at the individual, community, and country level. Using lessons learned from establishing the Nevada Tobacco Users Helpline, she parleyed her policy experience into more rapid implementation of similar programs in the Philippines. With faculty and student engagement to augment public health interventions, she applied solutions cross culturally to make significant impact in clinical services and educational curricula in two countries.

She received her BSN degree at the University of Santo Tomas School of Nursing, Manila, Philippines, her MN degree at Teachers College, New York, and her EdD at Loyola University, Chicago. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, a Board Certified Public Health Nurse, Advanced, Certified Nurse Educator, Certified Addictions Registered Nurse, Advanced Practice and a Fellow of the International Nurses Society on Addictions.