Sheldon D Fields

Early life and education

Fields was born in Brooklyn, New York, in January 1970, the youngest child of six children raised by a single mother. Fields attended public schools and lived in Brooklyn until the age of 17. Sheldon attended Clara Barton High School for Health Professionals with the intention of going to medical school in the future. Instead, he discovered his love of nursing. At the age of 17, Sheldon began his college education at the State University of New York (now known as Binghamton University). Fields graduated in 1991 and started his first job as a nurse at the Sloan Cancer Centerin New York City. It was there that Fields first was exposed to the HIV/AIDS population. Working at Sloan Cancer Center, Fields also worked closely with Nurse Practitioners and decided to return to school to receive his advanced degree in nursing. In 1993, Fields returned to Binghamton University to complete a master's in family nursing with certification as Family Nurse Practitioner. While studying for his master's degree, Fields researched intimate partner violence. His mentor, Dr. Theresa Grabo, encouraged him to pursue a Ph.D., and Fields went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania, his mentor’s alma mater, graduating with a Ph.D. in Nursing Science in 2000.

Professional life

Fields's specialty is behavioral health, in particular HIV/AIDS prevention. He has produced contributions including scholarly articles, book chapters, seminars, webinars, newspaper articles, and television appearances. Many of his contributions focus on the young minority HIV/AIDS population.

Fields has conducted national-level research within the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and the HIV Prevention Trials Network(HPTN). Along with these endeavors, Fields began his career as an assistant professor at Binghamton University from 2000 to 2001. While in Rochester, New York, in 2009, he was selected for the highly competitive and prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, which allowed him to work in the office of United States Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). Fields supported Senator Mikulski's work on the aging subcommittee of the Senate HELP committee during the height of the historic healthcare reform legislation. Shortly after, Fields was promoted to associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Rochester.

In late 2011, Fields became an associate professor at Florida International University's Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing and Health Sciences and served as the first-ever assistant dean of clinical affairs and health policy, as well as the co-director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. Fields left Florida in January 2015 to be the dean of the Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California. This appointment made Fields one of the youngest nursing deans in the country. Fields is also one of very few people of color (Afro-Latino) or men to have led a school of nursing. Fields left Drew in 2016, and in January 2017 he began work as dean of New York Institute of Technology's School of Health Professions, where he oversees five allied health degree programs. Fields is a fellow in the national academy of practice (FNAP), the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP), and the prestigious American Academy of Nursing (FAAN).

Fields has been cited in several newspapers, including the Sun-Sentinel and the Bay Area Reporter. He has also written a chapter in the book Disaster Nursing and Emergency Preparedness.

Awards and honors

Journal Articles