Merrian Brooks

Dr. Merrian Brooks is a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She was born in Virginia and raised all over the United States, moving with her father, who was in the military, and her mother and brother. She attended the University of Pittsburgh on the Helen Faison Scholarship for her undergraduate studies, with majors in neuroscience and the history and philosophy of science, graduating with a B.S. and B.Phil. from the University's’ honors college. She later received a master’s degree from Pitt, with a focus on clinical science. She went to medical school at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, where she earned her D.O. degree and was selected to serve as a primary care teaching fellow as a senior medical student. There, she mentored her first students, a task she has continued, now mentoring several undergraduate and medical students. Merrian is a board-certified pediatrician, after completing residency at Cooper Children’s Regional Hospital in Camden, New Jersey. She also is a board-certified adolescent medicine physician, having finished her fellowship in the specialty. She has provided primary medical care to young people at both Covenant House Pennsylvania and Covenant House New Jersey. Currently, she spends most of the year in Gaborone, Botswana, in Southern Africa, doing work she started as a CHOP David Pincus Pediatric Global Health fellow. She is now an attending physician in adolescent medicine in the Craig Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine at CHOP and an instructor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. Merrian also does research related to mental health interventions for adolescents living with HIV. She is profoundly interested in improving the health and well-being of adolescents in low- and middle-income countries and underserved youth in the United States.