Giovanna Chesler, a film professor, couldn’t have scripted a screenplay more provocative than the drama that recently unfolded in her own life.

Sitting at a 45-degree angle, clad in a paper gown, legs in stirrups, Chesler received the diagnosis from her gynecologist — she had HPV, a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

“I was shocked,” says Chesler, who later found out that the cells were pre-cancerous and needed to be removed.

Chesler, a 33-year-old filmmaker who’d immersed herself in women’s studies during her undergraduate years at the University of Virginia and illustrated the complexities of the female body through film, found herself at the forefront of a women’s sexual health issue that affects millions, the human papillomavirus, better known as HPV.

Her private drama became a public education campaign of sorts in which she produced short videos chronicling her experience and later engaged her American University students to generate more awareness for the little-talked-about, but widely impactful STI.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. Approximately 20 million Americans are currently infected with an HPV, and another 6.2 million people become newly infected each year. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire a genital HPV infection at some point in their lives.

There are more than 100 different strains of HPV, more than 30 can cause cancer. About 10 percent of women with high-risk strains of HPV will develop long-lasting HPV infections that put them at risk for cervical cancer. Most with HPV do not develop symptoms or health problems. Certain types of HPV can cause genital warts in men and women.

According to the CDC, in most cases, the body fights off HPV naturally and the infected cells then go back to normal.

But Chesler wasn’t so lucky. Shortly after her diagnosis, Chesler had the pre-cancerous dysplasia surgically removed.