Dr. Merritt's research investigates 1) the acoustic-phonetic variability that differentiates speakers of varying gender identities (e.g., agender, non-binary, transgender men, and transgender women) and 2) listeners' perception of this variability. Recent work has used auditory free classification to examine listeners’ perceptual organization of speakers of varying gender identities. Current work is examining the extent to which speech differs across speakers of varying gender identities between American English and Mexican Spanish, and how Spanish listeners perceptually represent speaker gender. Dr. Merritt is also developing, in conjunction with faculty and staff across CHS and School of Pharmacy, a health education program for the gender diverse community of the Paso del Norte region.