The Rotary Club of Shepherdstown has inducted Amanda Merkel as a new member on the April 23rd morning meeting. The accompanying photo shows, Merkel, center, with District and Club Membership chair PDG Dana Orsini, left, and Club President-Elect and sponsor Cara Keys, right. Amanda’s career experience has run the scientific gamut, so to say. She has worked on numerous strategic programs for the federal government and other entities, including program management for the Air Force Surgeon General’s Epidemic Outbreak Surveillance Program, medical student instruction in Parasitology and Microscopy, as well as research in malaria vaccine development, Bartonellosis transmission, West Nile Virus, and feral honeybee genetics. More recently, Amanda has worked at the high school level providing content creation and instruction in Biology, Nutrition & Food Science, and Environmental Science.
Currently, she works at the college level educating nurses, as well as converting educational content into microlearning-based learning management systems deployable on mobile applications, in an effort to make education more accessible to underserved populations. In addition to her PhD candidacy in Medical Zoology at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Amanda holds an M.S.P.H. in Tropical Medicine from Tulane University and a B.S. in Genetics and Entomology from Texas A&M University.
Amanda resides here in wild and wonderful Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where she enjoys spending time with her four young children, playing piano, renovating historic homes, and being outdoors. She is also a huge fitness enthusiast, cycling and high-intensity interval training being her favorites, and has been an indoor cycling instructor for over 15 years. Her guilty pleasures are travel, coffee, puns, board games, and the daily crossword puzzle.
To learn more about the Shepherdstown Rotary Club, including how to become a member, contact info@shepherdstownrotary.org.
