Fairfield Egan Dean Meredith Wallace Kazer, PhD, APRN, FAAN has been appointed to serve a four-year term on the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP) for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). 

Dr. Kazer views this prestigious appointment as a logical extension of her role as the Dean of the Egan School.  “As a school, our mission is to to improve health outcomes of underserved and vulnerable populations by educating students to serve these populations. It is an honor to expand my role to include service to this national organization, as HRSA shares our goal for improving access to health services for those who need care the most.” 

As an advisory council member, Dr. Kazer and her fellow appointees will provide advice and recommendations on policy, program, and regulation development to Congress and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. They will focus on a range of issues related to nurse workforce, nurse supply, education, and practice improvement.

An award-winning author, Dr. Kazer oversees the nationally ranked Egan School's esteemed faculty of clinical experts in patient care, state-of-the-art facility, and array of undergraduate and graduate programs that prepare future healthcare leaders. Dr. Kazer’s career-spanning focus on improving the quality of life of older adults has resulted in numerous patient-centered interventions. Her work has been disseminated in a dozen books, 85 peer-reviewed journal publications, 27 book chapters, and more than 100 research and invited presentations.

Dr. Kazer completed her BS in nursing at Boston University, earned her MS in nursing in medical-surgical nursing with a specialty in geriatrics from Yale University, and received her PhD in nursing research and theory development at New York University (NYU). She was the managing editor of the Journal of Applied Nursing Research and the research brief editor for the journal, and is currently editor-in-chief of the Building Healthy Academic Communities Journal. Her scholarly work, Prostate Cancer: Nursing Assessment Management and Care, won an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award. She was the associate editor of The Geriatric Nursing Research Digest, and the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Nursing Research. Dr. Kazer also published and edited a case studies book for advanced practice, which won American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards. She is the past recipient of the Springer Publishing Company Award for Applied Nursing Research, and the Virginia Henderson Award for Outstanding Contributions to Nursing Research.

Among her many accolades, in 2014, Dr. Kazer was named among the 15 top adult gerontology professors, and the following year she was named the 10th most influential dean of nursing in the U.S. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Yale School of Nursing Distinguished Alumni Award and named inaugural editor of the new Building Healthy Academic Communities Journal. For her statewide nursing leadership, Dr. Kazer received the Connecticut League for Nursing President’s Award in 2018. In 2019 she was appointed to the VA OAA National Academic Affiliations Council.

Dr. Kazer is also an adult and gerontological primary care nurse practitioner and currently maintains a practice with a focus on chronic illness in older adults.