James L Merle, PhD

Before entering graduate school, I worked with youth in a variety of settings: I served multiple years in the Americorps in Duluth, Minneapolis, and Boston, taught high school students abroad in the Federated States of Micronesia, coordinated a youth bicycle program in Lake Elmo, MN, was a counselor at a leadership camp, developed health and academic enrichment activities at Boys and Girls clubs, and was a special education assistant within residential and day treatment programs.

These experiences made me interested in improving outcomes for youth with externalizing behavioral challenges. After entering graduate school wanting to understand behavior and develop interventions to support children with behavioral needs, I learned that a host of interventions exist, but that they are not routinely used in practice. 

This led to my interest in implementation science–which is the study of how evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies are effectively translated to and used in real-world settings like hospitals, schools, and communities.

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I earned my graduate degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2021, and completed a clinical internship at Boys Town in Omaha, NE.

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I am currently a Post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Utah working alongside Drs. J.D. Smith and Guilherme del Fiol studying implementation science methodology and supporting implementation across a broad range of settings and populations, which are described below.

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