Dr. Megan Threats, PhD, MSLIS is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  She is a faculty affiliate at the Center for Racial Justice at the University of Michigan Gerld R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies at New York University, the Consumer Health Informatics Working Group at Brown University, and the Digital Studies Institute. She is the director of the Health Justice Informatics Lab. 

​

She is an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in library and information science and public health. Her research focuses on historically marginalized communities’ health information and technology practices, particularly Black and LGBTQ communities. Dr. Threats develops theory about information practices, and investigates structural and social determinants of information and health inequities, specifically intersectional discrimination. She uses community-based methods to design information resources and technologies to reduce disparities and improve marginalized communities' health and well-being.

 

Her research has been published in high-ranking peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology and the Journal of Medical Internet Research.  It has also received funding support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the U-M National Center for Institutional Diversity, and she is the recipient of a U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Early Career Research Development Grant.

​​

In May 2020, Dr. Threats completed a PhD in Information and library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science where she was a Gates Millennium Scholar, P.E.O. Scholar, and a Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellow. She received a Master of Library and Information Science from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies and a completed a dual Bachelor of Arts in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy and Comparative Cultures and Politics at the Michigan State University James Madison College where she was a McNair Scholar. 

​

Dr. Threats has extensive experience working in libraries, public health, public policy, higher education administration and in the technology sector. Mostly notably, she worked as the Public Services and Reference Librarian at the AIDS Library of Philadelphia FIGHT; where she was an American Library Association Emerging Leader. As an intern for former U.S. Senator Carl Levin and as the Director of Educational Policy for the Associated Students of Michigan State University, she gained invaluable advocacy and policy research/writing experience. In her previous professional roles with the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, and the i3 Scholars Program, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM and health related fields.