Simonelli is the associate dean for undergraduate program and clinical professor for Boston College’s William F. Connell School of Nursing.
Simonelli has been an MCH nurse for 34 years. The majority of her experience has been in high-risk labor and delivery. She has been teaching clinical Obstetrical and Pediatric Nursing to undergraduate and graduate students since 1989. She has held part-time appointments with UMASS Boston, MGH’s IHP, Regis College and Boston College prior to joining BC’s full-time faculty in 2001.
Her undergraduate studies were at Marquette University where she received a BS in nursing, she obtained her MS from Boston College in their CNS – acute care Pediatric program and her PhD in Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research has focused primarily on optimizing health for women and their infants. Currently she is engaged in a randomized control trial evaluating alternative therapies for pain management in post-cesarean birth women to address the nation’s opioid crisis.