Fenn received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history (with honors) from
Duke University in 1981, then attended
Yale University, finishing her master's degree in 1985. Fenn originally planned to write her dissertation on
millenarianism in Native American culture, but left her doctoral program at Yale before it was finished, as she was "bored" with academia. Fenn entered the auto mechanic program at
Durham Technical Community College and worked as a mechanic around the
Durham, North Carolina, area for eight years before returning to Yale in 1995 to complete her studies.
Pox Americana, her dissertation about the
1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic, was written while working part-time, and completed in 1999. Fenn was interviewed on multiple national news outlets about biological warfare after the
September 11 attacks. Fenn won the 2004
Cox Book Prize for her work
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-1782. She received the Public Scholar Award from the
National Endowment for the Humanities in 2019. Prior to joining the
University of Colorado at Boulder in 2012, Fenn taught at
George Washington University from 1999 to 2002 and Duke from 2002 to 2012. == Works ==