Cynthia Connolly

Historian and pediatric nurse practitioner Cynthia A. Connolly, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, is associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she holds fellowships at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and The Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women. She is also co-faculty director at the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice, and Research at the university. Connolly’s research analyzes the historical forces that have shaped children’s health care delivery and family policy in the United States. Her training in history and policy and her more than thirty years as a pediatric nurse provide a valuable lens through which to study enduring issues in funding and delivering children’s health care in the United States, especially for the nation’s most vulnerable children. Her most recent book, Saving Sickly Children: The Tuberculosis Preventorium in American Life, 1909–1970, received the Lavinia Dock Award from the American Association for the History of Nursing and was supported by numerous research grants, including a Scholarly Award in Biomedicine and Health from the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health. Her current research on the history of children and pharmaceutical policy since the 1930s is funded through a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research grant. A book based on this research is under contract with Rutgers University Press.