You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.

Social Epidemiology / Data Science

  1. Nguyen, T. T., Merchant, J. S., Makres, K., Dennard, E., Criss, S., & Nguyen, Q. C. (2026). SOCIAL MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH. From Posts to Patterns: Using Social Media to Investigate Drivers of Population Health, 146.
  2. Drew, L. B., Merchant, J., Thoma, M. E., Mane, H., Yue, X., & Nguyen, T. T. (2026). The association between state-level negative racial sentiment and maternal hypertension in the US from 2016 to 2021: An observational study using Twitter data. PLoS One, 21(4), e0346564.
  3. Merchant, J. S., Nguyen, T. T., Makres, K., & Evans, C. R. (2025). Intersectional inequities in suicide ideation by race, sexual orientation, and gender among US high school students in the pre-and post-2020 waves of the YRBSS: an application of random effects intersectional MAIHDA. American Journal of Epidemiology, 194(9), 2540-2552.
  4. Nguyen, Q. C., Doumbia, R., Nguyen, T. T., Yue, X., Mane, H., Merchant, J., … & He, X. (2025). Changes in the Neighborhood Built Environment and Chronic Health Conditions in Washington, DC, in 2014-2019: Longitudinal Analysis. JMIR Formative Research, 9(1), e74195.
  5. Alibilli, A. S., Jain, V., Mane, H., Yue, X., Ratzki-Leewing, A., Merchant, J. S., … & Nguyen, T. T. (2025). Harnessing Facebook to investigate real-world mentions of adverse events of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) medications: observational study of Facebook posts from 2022 to 2024. JMIR infodemiology, 5, e73619.
  6. Nguyen, T. T., Yue, X., Mane, H., Seelman, K., … Merchant, J. S., … & Nguyen, Q. C. (2025). Decoding digital discourse through multimodal text and image machine learning models to classify sentiment and detect hate speech in race-and lesbian, Gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual community–related posts on social media: Quantitative study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27, e72822.
  7. Criss, S., Nguyen, T. T., Gonzales, S. M., Lin, B., Kim, M., Makres, K., … Merchant, J. S., & Hswen, Y. (2024). “HIV Stigma Exists”—Exploring ChatGPT’s HIV Advice by Race and Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 1-14.
  8. Wei, H., Hswen, Y., Merchant, J. S., Drew, L. B., Nguyen, Q. C., Yue, X., … & Nguyen, T. T. (2024). From Tweets to Streets: Observational Study on the Association Between Twitter Sentiment and Anti-Asian Hate Crimes in New York City from 2019 to 2022. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 26, e53050.
  9. Nguyen, Q. C., Tasdizen, T., Alirezaei, M., Mane, H., Yue, X., Merchant, J. S., … & Nguyen, T. T. (2024). Neighborhood built environment, obesity, and diabetes: A Utah siblings study. SSM-Population Health, 26, 101670.
  10. De La Cruz, M. M., Criss, S., Kim, M., Thai, N., Makres, K., Merchant, J. S., & Nguyen, T. T. (2024). Not a Monolith. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 11(2), 58-80.
  11. Nguyen, T. T., Merchant, J. S., Yue, X., Mane, H., Wei, H., Huang, D., … & Nguyen, Q. C. (2024). A Decade of Tweets: Visualizing Racial Sentiments Towards Minoritized Groups in the United States Between 2011 and 2021. Epidemiology, 35(1), 51-59.
  12. Nguyen, T. T., Criss, S., Kim, M., De La Cruz, M. M., Thai, N., Merchant, J. S., … & Nguyen, Q. C. (2023). Racism during pregnancy and birthing: experiences from Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, Latina, and Middle Eastern women. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 10(6), 3007-3017.
  13. Nguyen, T. T., Merchant, J. S., Criss, S., Makres, K., Gowda, K. N., Mane, H., … & Allen, A. M. (2023). Examining Twitter-Derived Negative Racial Sentiment as Indicators of Cultural Racism: Observational Associations With Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight Among a Multiracial Sample of Mothers, 2011-2021. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e44990.
  14. Nguyen, T. T., Yu, W., Merchant, J. S., Criss, S., Kennedy, C. J., Mane, H., … & Nguyen, Q. C. (2023). Examining exposure to messaging, content, and hate speech from partisan news social media posts on racial and ethnic health disparities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(4), 3230.
  15. Nguyen, T. T., Criss, S., Kim, M., De La Cruz, M. M., Thai, N., Merchant, J. S., … & Nguyen, Q. C. (2022). Racism during pregnancy and birthing: experiences from Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, Latina, and Middle Eastern women. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 1-11.

Social/Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

  1. Xie, H., Moraczewski, D., McNaughton, K. A., Warnell, K. R., Merchant, J. S., Kirby, L. A., & Redcay, E. (2026). Functional Connectivity During Social Reward Processing in Autistic and Neurotypical Adolescents. Brain and Behavior, 16(5), e71378.
  2. Abdurokhmonova, G., Taylor-Robinette, E. K., McDorman, S. A., Ramirez, A. G., Merchant, J. S., Gabrieli, J. D., & Romeo, R. R. (2026). Parallel contributions of socioeconomic status and bilingual experiences on executive function and the brain in young children. Brain and language, 276, 105737.
  3. Merchant, J. S., Glaros, S., Edakoth, E., Harris, R., Tchangalova, N., & Redcay, E. (2025). Brain bases of real-time social interaction: A meta-analytic investigation of human neuroimaging studies. Aperture neuro, 5, 10-52294.
  4. McNaughton, K. A., Kirby, L. A., Warnell, K. R., Alkire, D., Merchant, J. S., Moraczewski, D., … & Redcay, E. (2023). Social-interactive reward elicits similar neural response in autism and typical development and predicts future social experiences. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 59, 101197.
  5. Dziura, S. L., Hosangadi, A., Shariq, D., Merchant, J. S., & Redcay, E. (2023). Partner similarity and social cognitive traits predict social interaction success among strangers. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 18(1), nsad045.
  6. Merchant, J.S., Alkire, D., & Redcay, E. (2022). Neural Similarity between mentalizing and live social interaction during the transition to adolescence. Human Brain Mapping, 43(13), 4074–4090. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25903
  7. Dziura, S., Merchant, J. S., Alkire, D., Rashid, A., Shariq, D., Moraczewski, D., & Redcay, E. (2021). Effects of social and emotional context on neural activation and synchrony during movie viewing. Human brain mapping, 10.1002/hbm.25669.
  8. Jankowski, K. F., Moore, W. E. III, Merchant, J. S., Kahn, L. E., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2014). But do you think I’m cool? Developmental differences in striatal recruitment during direct and reflected social self-evaluations. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 40-54.
  9. Moore, W. E. III, Merchant, J. S., Kahn, L. E., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2014). ‘Like me?’: Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is sensitive to both personal relevance and self-similarity during social comparisons. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9, 421-426.
  10. Pfeifer, J. H., Kahn, L. E., Merchant, J. S., Peake, S. A., Veroude, K., Masten, C. L., Lieberman, M. D., Mazziotta, J. C., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Longitudinal change in the neural bases of adolescent social self-evaluations: Effects of age and pubertal development. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 7415-7419.
  11. Pfeifer, J. H., Merchant, J. S., Colich, N., Hernandez, L., Rudie, J., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Neural and behavioral responses during self-evaluative processes differ in youth with and without autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2, 272-285.

Clinical Neuroscience

  1. Kaminski, A., Xie, H., You, X., Flaharty, K., Jeppsen, C., Li, S., Merchant, J. S., … & Vaidya, C. J. (2023). 354 Unitary neural correlates of executive control in pediatric transdiagnostic psychopathology. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 7(s1), 104-105.
  2. Kaminski, A., You, X., Flaharty, K., Jeppsen, C., Li, S., Merchant, J. S., Berl, M. M., Kenworthy, L., & Vaidya, C. J. (2022). Cingulate-Prefrontal Connectivity During Dynamic Cognitive Control Mediates Association Between P-Factor and Adaptive Functioning in a Transdiagnostic Pediatric Sample. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.07.003
  3. Cook, K. M., You, X., Cherry, J. B., Merchant, J. S., Skapek, M., Powers, M. D., … & Vaidya, C. J. (2021). Neural correlates of schema-dependent episodic memory and association with behavioral flexibility in autism spectrum disorders and typical development. Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders, 13(1), 1-16.
  4. Loewenstern, J., You, X., Merchant, J., Gordon, E. M., Stollstorff, M., Devaney, J., & Vaidya, C. J. (2019). Interactive effect of 5-HTTLPR and BDNF polymorphisms on amygdala intrinsic functional connectivity and anxiety. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 285, 1-8.

Translational Neuroscience

  1. Merchant, J. S., Purcell, J. J., Callow, D. D., Won, J., Kommula, Y., Rosenberg, S., … & Smith, J. C. (2025). The Functional Connectome Mediates Associations Between Fitness and Cognition Across the Adult Lifespan. Human Brain Mapping, 46(16), e70404.
  2. Merchant, J. S., Cosme, D., Giuliani, N. R., Dirks, B., & Berkman, E. T. (2020). Neural Substrates of Food Valuation and Its Relationship With BMI and Healthy Eating in Higher BMI Individuals. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 14, 578676.
  3. Giuliani, N. R., Cosme, D., Merchant, J. S., Dirks, B., & Berkman, E. T. (2020). Brain activity associated with regulating food cravings predicts changes in self-reported food craving and consumption over time. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 14.
  4. Giuliani, N. R., Merchant, J. S., Cosme, D. & Berkman, E. T. (2018) Neural predictors of dietary change. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1428(1): 208-220.
  5. Berkman, E.T., Kahn, L.E., & Merchant, J.S. (2014). Training-induced changes in inhibitory control network activity. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(1), 149-157.

Open Science/Misc

  1. Gau, R., Noble, S., Heuer, K., Bottenhorn, K., Bilgin, I. P., Yang, Y. F., … Merchant, J. S. .. & Zuo, X. N. (2021). Brainhack: developing a culture of open, inclusive, community-driven neuroscience. Neuron, 109(11), 1769-1775.
  2. Gordon, N.S., Merchant, J.S., Zanbaka, C., Hodges, L.F., & Goolkasian, P. (2011). Interactive gaming reduces experimental pain with or without a head mounted display. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 2123-2128.
  3. Zeidan, F., Gordon, N.S., Merchant, J.S., & Goolkasian, P. (2009). The effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on experimentally induced pain. Journal of Pain, 11, 199-209.