Merrill Asp, PhD, is a postdoctoral research associate in the Quantitative Biology Institute, Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology. Merrill’s doctoral work in Physics at Syracuse University involved developing quantitative image analysis pipelines for studying mechanosensing and collective motion in bacterial aggregates. This built on his previous undergraduate research studying dimensional reduction of analytical models of enzyme networks. Teaching is a long-time passion of Merrill’s, and providing equitable access to education is a central goal of his work in academia.
During his PhD, he was awarded a grant from the New York State Section of the American Physical Society (APS) that secured funding for a high school outreach program that he pioneered with fellow doctoral candidate Sarthak Gupta. Together they developed demonstrations, group activities, and lesson curricula that they brought to over one hundred students in local high schools, following up with learners’ experiences over multiple visits. Their efforts to bring university-level science to Central New York schools, many of which have large minority populations, earned them a Social Justice Award from the Syracuse University Physics Department.
Merrill has advocated for greater inclusion of underrepresented groups in science both as a mentor for undergraduate researchers and as a member of the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences curriculum committee. He is committed to strengthening ties between academics and local community members through outreach and mutual aid, such as demo-building workshops for high school teachers. At Yale, Merrill has helped organize the Flipped Science Fair through OpenLabs and the Yale Pathways to Science program in addition to leading and developing workshops for New Haven high school students interested in research. He is continuing his outreach and advocacy work as a new member of the YPA Belonging Committee. In his free time, Merrill enjoys improvising music on the keyboard and creative writing.