Dr. Merritt's research investigates 1) the acoustic-phonetic variability that differentiates speakers of varying gender identities (e.g., non-binary, transgender men, and transgender women) and 2) listener's perception of this variability.

• The University of Texas at El Paso Research & Innovation First-Time PI Award - The University of Texas at El Paso (04/24/2024)
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (08/01/2023-08/31/2023)
• Acoustical Society of America Early Career Travel Award - The University of Texas at El Paso (04/01/2023-04/30/2023)
• ASHA Advancing Academic Research Careers (AARC) Award - American Speech-Language Hearing Association (04/01/2023-04/30/2023)

• Ph D in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University (2022)
• MS in Speech-Language Pathology, East Tennessee State University (2008)
• BA in Spanish, East Tennessee State University (2006)

• Auditory free classification of gender diverse speakers The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 155 2 (2024), Brandon M. Merritt, Tessa Bent, Rowan Kilgore, Cameron Eads.
• Speech beyond the binary: Some acoustic-phonetic and auditory-perceptual characteristics of non-binary speakers JASA Express Letters 3 3 (2023), Brandon M. Merritt.
• Perceptual Representation of Speaker Gender ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (2022), Brandon M. Merritt.
• Revisiting the acoustics of speaker gender perception: A gender expansive perspective The Journal of The Acoustical Society of America 151 1 (2022), Brandon M. Merritt, Tessa Bent.
• Toward more inclusive gender identity measurement in speech, language, and hearing practice and research Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups 5 (2020), Brandon M. Merritt.
• Perceptual evaluation of speech naturalness in speakers of varying gender identitites Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 63 (2020), Brandon M. Merritt, Tessa Bent.

• Fundamental frequency patterns across gender, task, and language in Spanish-English bilinguals (2024), Volume Ottawa, ON, June Contreras, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Perceptual representation of speaker gender in Spanish-English bilingual listeners (2024), Volume Ottawa, ON, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Cultivating Community Relationships for Engagement Scholarship (2024), Volume El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Interactions between voice-gender and word-gender perceptions (2024), Volume Fort Worth, TX, Athena Kirby, Valerie Freeman, Tori Courouleau, Brandon M. Merritt.
• An Interdisciplinary Educational Approach to Address Gender Diverse Health Disparities in a Predominantly Hispanic/Latinx Community (2023), Volume Boston, MA, Brandon M. Merritt, Patricia Lara, Sofia Carranza, Ariadna Hernandez, Oralia Loza.
• An Interdisciplinary Health Education Program to Address Gender Diverse Health Inequity in an Underserved, Predominantly Hispanic/Latinx community – Lessons Learned (2023), Volume El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt, Christopher G. Medlin, June Contreras, Lori Silva-Edwards, Oralia Loza.
• Perceptual representation of speaker gender (2023), Volume Minneapolis, MN, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Comparing Segmental and Suprasegmental Features in Speaker Gender Perception: An Acoustic Distance Approach (2023), Volume Chicago, IL, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Incorporating a Gender Diverse Perspective in Speech Science Pedagogy (2023), Volume Chicago, IL, Brandon M. Merritt, Susannah Levi.
• BLOOM: Borderland Resources for Gender Minorities (2023), Volume El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt.
• BLOOM Series (2023), Volume Borderland Rainbow Center, El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt.
• An Interdisciplinary Health Education Program to Address Gender Diverse Health Inequity in an Underserved, Predominantly Hispanic/Latinx community (2023), Volume El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt, Oralia Loza.
• An Interdisciplinary Health Education Program to Address Gender Diverse Health Inequity in an Underserved, Predominantly Hispanic/Latinx community (2023), Volume El Paso, TX, Brandon M. Merritt, Oralia Loza.
• Perceptual Representation of Speaker Gender (2023), Volume virtual, Brandon M. Merritt.
• Auditory Free Classification of Gender Diverse Speakers (2022), Volume Nashville, TN, Brandon M. Merritt, Tessa Bent.
• Comparing Acoustic-Phonetic and Auditory-Perceptual Measures Across Speakers of Varying Gender Identities (2022), Volume New Orleans, LA, Brandon M. Merritt, Tessa Bent.
• Diversity of Research Participants in Communication Sciences and Disorders (2022), Volume New Orleans, LA, Millager Ryan, Brandon Merritt.
• Perceptual Representation of Speaker Gender (2022), Volume The University of Texas at El Paso, Brandon M. Merritt.

• I-REACH Rural Veterans
• An interdisciplinary health education program to address transgender health inequity in an underserved, predominantly Latinx community
• Developing Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Speech Therapy Targets for Spanish Speaking Transgender Individuals