Megan Dandurand - Research Project Specialist

Megan Dandurand, MSW

Research Project Specialist

Department of Population Science and Policy

Contact:

mdandurand24@siumed.edu

Primary Responsibilities:

My primary responsibility for the Department of Population Science and Policy is to assist in research and community engagement aimed at improving health outcomes in central and southern Illinois.

About:

I graduated from Eastern Illinois University (2014) with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. While at EIU, I conducted an honors thesis entitled “Nightmares in School-Aged Children,” where I measured the nightmare frequency and distress of a sample of school-aged children and their corresponding anxiety traits. I received my Master’s in Social Work with a concentration in mental health from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2016) and completed my clinical internship at Heartland Human Services in Effingham, IL. I began my professional research career at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, where I worked on a variety of studies ranging from mental well-being of preschoolers and adolescents to opiate overdose mortality. I was excited to join the PSP at SIU School of Medicine full time as a Research Project Specialist in October 2019. I am passionate about learning and improving the lives of people from central and southern Illinois.