Gia Merlo, MD MBA FACLM DipABLM earned her doctorate in medicine at Nagarjuna University in India, and completed an Adult Psychiatry Residency and a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, as well as a Post-Master’s Certificate in Evidence-Based Teaching in the Health Professions at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education in Baltimore.  She is board certified in Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Lifestyle Medicine.  She is a distinguished practitioner, educator and scholar whose work spans diverse emerging focal areas of knowledge and practice such as:  applicability of Lifestyle Medicine principles to nursing practice and to mental health promotion;  the influence of nutrition, and particularly of gut microbiome activity, upon mental health;  the oft-neglected importance of health practitioners' own self-care, wellness and resilience-building;  and integration of preventive medicine perspectives and an awareness of the the social determinants of health, in medical practice and professionalism.  She currently serves as Clinical Professor of Nursing and Senior Advisor on Wellness at Rory Meyers College of Nursing, New York University (NYU), and as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Dr. Merlo is the author of Principles of Medical Professionalism, Oxford University Press, 2021, and the principal author of two chapters in Improving Women’s Health Across the Lifespan, 2021:  "Emotional Wellness and Stress Resilience"and "Psychiatric Disorders in Women".  She was the principal editor of Lifestyle Nursing, CRC Press, 2022, and her current book projects include co-editing Medical Professionalism: Theory, Education, and Practice (Oxford University Press, expected 2024).  She is serving on the editorial team of the 4th edition of Dr. James Rippe's book, Lifestyle Medicine, specifically as the editor of the Mental Health section and of the Nursing and Lifestyle Medicine section.

In November 2021, Dr. Merlo was named a Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), and she serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in the area of Mental Health and Psychiatry.  She is a contributing author of the ACLM curriculum Lifestyle Medicine 101 and of the 3rd edition of the board review course, Foundations to Lifestyle Medicine, as well as the Chair of he ACLM Mental and Behavioral Health Member Interest Group.  She developed a novel Lifestyle Medicine curriculum titled Wellness in Nursing Through the Lens of Lifestyle Medicine and has been teaching this elective course to doctoral and graduate nursing students at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing since 2020.  She also teaches undergraduate NYU nursing students an elective course Lifestyle Approaches and Well-Being in Nursing, and teaches Lifestyle Medicine to NYU Grossman School of Medicine psychiatry residents.

Before joining the NYU faculty, Dr. Merlo served as Associate Dean of Health Professions at Rice University, and also taught medical students, residents and fellows at Baylor College of Medicine as a 2017-19 Master Teacher Fellow.  She has served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, Texas Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.