Melissa Fenton is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Her research focuses on improving mental and behavioral health in rural communities. Fenton’s work identifies unique risk and protective factors for substance use and mental health problems in rural communities to target through prevention and intervention. She has documented substance use prevalence across the rural-urban continuum, as well as risk and protective factors that may be especially important in rural substance use prevention. She draws on her own lived experience growing up in a rural community, as well as her training in substance use epidemiology to support her work.

Fenton is currently working on a rural mental and behavioral health needs assessment with behavioral health providers serving rural Coloradans; an interview study with adolescents, young adults, and parents in agriculture about substance use; and an evaluation of the Colorado Agricultural Addiction and Mental Health Program (CAAMHP). She works closely with the Colorado AgrAbility Project helping to evaluate programs and services and gathering data to inform their mental and behavioral health work.

Fenton received her B.S. in child, youth and family studies in 2008 and her M.A.S. in leadership education in 2015 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She worked as an Extension Educator in the Nebraska State 4-H Office until 2018. She was awarded her Ph.D in youth development and family science from the University of Florida in 2022.