Roles:
- Assistant Professor, Rutgers University School of Communication and Information
- Fellow, Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars (REIDS)
Contact:
Biography:
Megan Threats, PhD, MSLIS, is an incoming Assistant Professor at the Rutgers University - New Brunswick School of Communication and Information. Her program of research centers on leveraging information and social computing technologies to support health promotion and disease prevention in sexual and gender minority communities of color, with a focus on improving sexual health outcomes among Black women (transgender and cisgender). She examines how socio-contextual and structural factors affect engagement along the HIV prevention and care continuaa, and how individuals access and interact with health information to make decisions about their sexual health. As an early career researcher, she aims to use a critical theoretical and community-engaged approach, integrating information science and public health, to develop user-centered, culturally-appropriate informatics HIV/STI behavioral interventions. As a REIDS Fellow, she plans to conduct a pilot study investigating PrEP awareness, uptake/persistence, and willingness to use PrEP among Black women living in the United States. Additionally, the study would explore the feasibility and acceptability of using mobile technology to deliver an intervention encouraging PrEP uptake and persistence. The pilot study will inform the development of a culturally-tailored mHealth HIV prevention intervention promoting PrEP uptake and persistence among Black women.
Dr. Threats received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, MSLIS from Syracuse University, and a dual BA in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy and Comparative Cultures and Politics from Michigan State University. She is also a Forward Fellow at the Social Intervention Group at Columbia University, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies at New York University.
