Dr. Ashley L. Merianos is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Services at the University of Cincinnati and an Affiliate Member of the Division of Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
As a health services researcher, Dr. Merianos has extensive training and experience in the epidemiology and prevention of substance use, quantitative methodology, and clinical and translational research in the pediatric healthcare setting. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist and Tobacco Treatment Specialist.
Dr. Merianos has successfully secured funding as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator from the National Institutes of Health – the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Her active program of research focuses on parental tobacco cessation and child tobacco smoke exposure reduction in the acute healthcare and inpatient settings, measurement of complex tobacco smoke toxicant mixtures within microenvironments, and evaluation of policies aimed at protecting children from related harmful effects. This ongoing work has provided mentees with real-world opportunities to gain research skills and experiences needed to become competent, competitive, and capable to flourish in their academic/career pursuits and trajectories.
Dr. Merianos has co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications in scholarly journals and has delivered over 130 professional presentations, with many mentees as co-authors. She has garnered national and international media attention for her pediatric tobacco control research. Her work has been featured in online and print media outlets including U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Dr. Merianos is an American Academy of Health Behavior Fellow, American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium Member, Tobacco Regulatory Science Member, and Thirdhand Smoke Research Consortium Affiliate Researcher.
What does this award mean to you?
It is a great honor to receive the 2022 AAHB Mentorship Award. AAHB has provided me with a strong, welcoming environment to advance my research career through mentorship and collaborative opportunities with leaders in the health behavior field. Because mentorship has played such a critical role in my career, receiving this recognition from AAHB is among one of my highest professional achievements at this stage of my career.
Ashley L. Merianos, PhD