Healthcare executive to become first female Holy Cross board chair

Courtesy | Holy Cross Dr. Helen Boucher has been elected as the new chair of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees.

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By Sam Bonacci

The board of trustees for the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester unanimously elected Dr. Helen Boucher as its new chair, the school announced Wednesday. When she begins her term in July, she will be the first female board chair in the college’s history.

The 1986 Holy Cross graduate is an infectious diseases physician and healthcare administrator, according to a release from the college. She serves as dean ad interim for Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and is a professor of medicine at the school. She is chief academic officer for Wellforce Health System in Burlington.

“Upon her selection as interim dean and chief academic officer at Tufts, her colleagues praised her ‘ability to connect with people on a personal level and mobilize teams to tackle and overcome the most daunting of challenges.’ We are delighted that Holy Cross will now benefit from Helen’s extraordinary leadership skills and passion for the college and its Jesuit mission,” Holy Cross President Vincent Rougeau said in a press release.

Boucher’s experience includes chairing National Institutes of Health Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group Innovations Working Group. In 2015, she was appointed a voting member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria and elected treasurer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

She has been a member of the Holy Cross board since 2014 and has served as vice chair since 2021. She is a long-time volunteer at the college and has been the featured speaker at the College’s “Women in Science” event.