Dr. Raina Merchant is an associate vice president of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. She’s also the director of the Center for Digital Health and co-director of the National Clinician Scholars Program.

Merchant’s work is at the intersection of health and social media, mobile media and crowdsourcing. She has conducted projects evaluating health behaviors and communication on social media sites like Facebook, Yelp, Instagram, Foursquare and Gigwalk. Much of her work bridges new technologies in the field of cardiovascular health and resuscitation science.

Merchant was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of 10 young investigators likely to have a significant impact on the future of health and health care in the U.S., and she is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Expertise: Public health, social media research, crowdsourcing, resuscitation science, cardiovascular health

Location: Philadelphia, Pa.

Email: raina.merchant@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Twitter: @RainaMerchant

Heard on WHYY – The Pulse: What Medicine could learn from Facebook stalking you