Raina Merchant, MD, MS, received her undergraduate degree from Yale University. She attended the University of Chicago where she obtained her MD and completed her residency in Emergency Medicine. As a resident she served as chief and completed a resuscitation fellowship. Following residency, she completed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program at the University of Pennsylvania where she also earned a Masters of Science in Health Policy. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institue of Health Economics. She also works in the Office of Policy and Planning of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the Department of Health and Human Services. She also currently serves on the American HeartAssociation Emergency Cardiovascular Care, Research Working Group and the Cardiopulmonary Critical Care, Periorperative and Resuscitation Council, Leadership Committee as the early care representative. Her research is focused on preventing potentially avoidable deaths from cardiac arrest and improving impact of resuscitation therapies. Specifically she studies 1) diffusion of innovation and new media in resuscitation and 2) translation of research to policy. She is identifying communities at risk for cardiac arrest and evaluating unique strategies for improving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and automated external defibrillator AED availability. In the in-patient setting, she is studying best practices for improving in-hospital cardiac arrest care. Dr. Merchant is a co-director of the MyHeartMap Challenge.