Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001) which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title in 2002 by Choice. The book has become a classic text in the field and has been translated into and published in Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. Fountain is currently researching the successor volume to Building the Virtual State, which will examine technology-based cross-agency innovations in the U.S. federal government and their implications for governance and democratic processes, and Women in the Information Age (to be published by Cambridge University Press), which focuses on gender, information technology, and institutional behavior.

Professor Fountain also directs the Science, Technology, and Society Initiative (STS) and the Women in the Information Age Project (WITIA). The STS Initiative serves as a catalyst for collaborative, multi-disciplinary research partnerships among social, natural and physical scientists. WITIA examines the participation of women in computing and information-technology related fields and, with its partner institutions, seeks to increase the number of women experts and designers in information and communication technology fields.

She has served on several governing bodies and advisory groups in the public, private and nonprofit sectors in the U.S. and abroad. Her executive teaching and invited lectures have taken her to several developing countries and governments in transition including those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Nicaragua, Chile, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovenia as well as to countries including Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the countries of the European Union.