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M. Giovanna Merli

Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708-0312
236 Rubenstein Hall, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


M. Giovanna Merli is Professor of Public Policy, Sociology and Global Health and Director of the Duke University Population Research Institute. Her work straddles demography, Chinese population, society and Chinese diasporas, migration, global health. Her research interests include population and health issues that intersect frontline public policy; the social and behavioral determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases; the evaluation of network-based methods to recruit population representative samples of hard-to-survey, hidden or rare populations; and the application of network sampling approaches to the study of migration and health. A new project links origin and destination contexts to study the health outcomes of immigrants from Ghana to the U.S.. She is a Deputy Editor of the journal Demography

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy · 2014 - Present Sanford School of Public Policy
Research Professor of Global Health · 2014 - Present Duke Global Health Institute, University Institutes and Centers
Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology · 2014 - Present Sociology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

In the News


Published July 11, 2024
Changing the Demography of the Scholars Who Study Demography
Published May 23, 2018
What Rivalry? Duke and UNC Social Scientists Collaborate at Annual Demography Daze
Published October 29, 2015
News Tip: Ending China’s One-Child Policy ‘Long Overdue,’ Expert Says

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Recent Publications


The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on network dynamics among Chinese immigrants in the United States.

Journal Article International migration (Geneva, Switzerland) · April 2025 We use longitudinal data on the social networks of Chinese immigrants in the United States from 2018-2020 to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communication frequency and friendship formation. Understanding the pandemic's effect on social networ ... Full text Cite

Studying Chinese immigrants' spatial distribution in the Raleigh-Durham area by linking survey and commercial data using romanized names.

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society) · January 2025 Many population surveys do not provide information on respondents' residential addresses, instead offering coarse geographies like zip code or higher aggregations. However, fine resolution geography can be beneficial for characterizing neighbourhoods, espe ... Full text Cite

Insertion et entre-soi : l’immigration chinoise est diverse

Journal Article Population & Sociétés · May 28, 2024 La population immigrée de la France compte aujourd’hui moins de 2 % d’immigrés d’origine chinoise, soit environ 116 000 personnes, qui résident aux deux-tiers en Île-de-France. Les migrants économiques sont plus âgés et moins diplômés que les immig ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Dynamics of Ghanaian immigrants' health in the US: Critical life-stage experiences, social networks, acculturation and selection (GMHeS)

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2024 - 2029

Focused Training in Social Networks and Health

Inst. Training Prgm or CMECo-Principal Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2015 - 2026

Duke Population Research Center

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2010 - 2026

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Education, Training & Certifications


University of Pennsylvania · 1996 Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania · 1993 M.A.