As assistant director of media relations, Merchant manages communications for Emory School of Medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital. In this position, she is responsible for promoting Emory health research, the Emory School of Medicine involving Emory health sciences, and programs at Grady.

Merchant comes to Emory from CNN, where she was most recently a freelance producer in the Medical Unit. As a health producer, Merchant was responsible for the weekly CNN Cold & Flu Report, Feeling Fit and BodSquad fitness series. In addition, she prepared feature segments for House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, American Morning and AC 360.

Before joining the Medical Unit, Merchant was a full-time writer/producer for CNN Newsource and a freelance reporter for Accent Health on the Turner Private Network.

A native of Toronto, Ontario, Merchant earned a BA in psychology from Carleton University and a post-graduate diploma in journalism from Humber College. She began her broadcast career as a graduate intern at Canadian Television (CTV) and Global News where she wrote and produced health segments.