Meghan has been a research assistant at the Carsey Institute working with the Coos Youth Study (CYS) since 2009. Her interests include the stress process framework, mental health, substance ab(use), rural sociology, and youth and adolescents. She is co-authoring a book chapter focusing on rural-urban health disparities for the book, “Place and Health Among the Vulnerable,” allowing her to pull all of these interests together.

She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, concentrating in health and illness. Her dissertation examines the relationship between socioeconomic status, goal-striving stress and the impact they may have on depressive symptoms and delinquent behaviors among rural youth over time.