Holly Fontenot, Ph.D. ’12, RN, WHNP-BC, is a women’s health nurse practitioner whose clinical and research interests include reducing the rate of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, sexual health and safety, and forensic nursing. She joined the Connell School faculty in 2004 and became a clinical assistant professor in 2007. Since 2009, she has practiced at the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center, a downtown Boston clinic that specializes in care for homeless and vulnerable young adults. “I’ve always worked with underserved groups; I find it the most rewarding part of being a nurse practitioner,” says Fontenot, who has published widely, most recently in the Journal of Forensic Nursing, Nursing for Women’s Health, and the Journal for Nurse Practitioners.
In 2013, she received the Connell School’s Ann Wolbert Burgess Dissertation Award and was inducted into the National Academies of Practice as a distinguished practitioner and fellow. In her new faculty role as a tenure-track assistant professor, Fontenot continues to teach and coordinate the women’s health nurse practitioner graduate program, even as she accelerates her research on sexual health awareness, including ways nurses can promote vaccine use to prevent HPV infection and its associated cancers. “I can help alleviate some of the suffering related to this virus,” she said.;
—by Debra Bradley Ruder, photograph by Caitlin Cunningham