Fight For Children Board of Directors

Elizabeth (Betsy) G. Nabel, M.D.
President & CEO
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D. is President & CEO of Brigham and Women's Hospital. She also leads Faulkner Hospital in Boston. Dr. Nabel is the former Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, where she oversaw an extensive national research portfolio with an annual budget of approximately $3 billion.

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Nabel received her M.D. at Cornell University Medical College before moving to Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University where she completed her residency in internal medicine and a clinical/ research fellowship in cardiovascular (CV) medicine. She is board-certified in internal medicine and CV diseases. Dr. Nabel joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1987 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and rose through the ranks, becoming Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center in 1992, Professor of Internal Medicine and Physiology in 1994, and Director of the Division of Cardiology in 1997. Dr. Nabel joined the NHLBI in 1999 as Scientific Director for Clinical Research, and in 2005 became Director.

Among her leadership efforts as Director of the NHLBI, Dr. Nabel developed a broad based institute Strategic Plan, and she subsequently has launched new scientific programs in the genomics of complex diseases, stem and progenitor cell biology, translational research, systems biology, nanotechnology, global health, and implementation science. She redesigned much of the NHLBI intramural program.

Among her awards are the Willem Einthoven Award; the Amgen-Scientific Achievement Award; Distinguished Achievement Awards from the American Heart Association; Distinguished Alumni Award from Weill Cornell Medical College; and honorary doctorates from the University of Leuven, Belgium; Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York; and the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of American Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where she serves on the IOM and AAP Councils. Dr. Nabel has also served as Councilor and Secretary for the ASCI; Associate Editor of the JCI; Board of Reviewing Editors for Science; Editorial Board, Science Translational Medicine; and Editor, ACP Medicine.