Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion

Megan O’Brien holds a PhD in Community Psychology from Wichita State University and a Master’s of Public Health from the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She also completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus on drug dependence epidemiology. As a Senior Research Associate with the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare’s Office of Children and Families, her work focused primarily on improving access to services for Medicaid and Medicaid-eligible youth from underserved areas ranging from sparsely populated rural counties to the urban core of Kansas City, KS.

Since joining AEDI, Dr. O’Brien has expanded her passion for improving service access to include the impact of asset development and financial inclusion on improving children's health outcomes. Dr. O’Brien collaborates with the Director, center associates, and community organizations to coordinate all facets of AEDI initiatives including proposal management, regulatory control, data collection and production of deliverables. Outside of AEDI, Dr. O'Brien regularly consults with fledgling CSA programs to advise on data management issues unique to CSA programs.