Junaid Merchant
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolJunaid Merchant is a data scientist and research faculty member with a PhD in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science and nine years of experience applying multilevel modeling and machine learning to social epidemiology and mental health. At the University of Maryland he leads cross-disciplinary projects analyzing high-dimensional, multi-source public health data and builds AI pipelines that extract public-opinion signals from social media to inform policy-relevant insights. His background spans cognitive neuroscience, clinical pediatrics, and population health, enabling translational work from neural mechanisms to population-level determinants. He also consults on predictive modeling and automation for academic and community organizations, including logistics used to distribute substantial mutual aid. Known for combining rigorous methods with practical tooling, he organizes technical training initiatives (e.g., regional BrainHacks) to grow local data science capacity.
10 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS), Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) at University of MarylandMaster of Science - MS, Experimental Psychology/Behavioral Neuroscience, Master of Science - MS, Experimental Psychology/Behavioral Neuroscience at Seton Hall UniversityBachelor of Arts - BA, Psychology and Studio Art (double major), Bachelor of Arts - BA, Psychology and Studio Art (double major) at University of North Carolina AshevilleProgramming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
UMD-COMBINE/IntroToHPCs
Jan 2021 - Feb 2021
Contributions:27 commits, 26 pushes, 1 branch in 1 month
JunaidMerchant/JunaidMerchant.github.io
Mar 2025 - Feb 2026
Contributions:61 pushes in 11 months
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