Dr. Melissa Blythe Harrell is an Associate Professor at UTHealth-Houston School of Public Health. She resides and works in Austin, Texas. Her research interests focus on tobacco use among youth and young adults. A behavioral epidemiologist by training, Dr. Harrell has served as a Senior Writer and Editor of 3 Surgeon General’s Reports and 1 Institute of Medicine Report on this topic, and she has over 175 peer-reviewed publications, overall. She has been a lead investigator on 15 federally funded grants from the NIH and CDC to date, totaling more than $30 million in direct costs. Dr. Harrell completed her undergraduate studies at the College of William & Mary (BS, Biology, 1991) and received her MPH (1999) and PhD (2002) from the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Since 2006, she has served on the faculty of UT Health-Houston, with appointments in the Departments of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Harrell’s extensive research portfolio includes behavioral surveillance and intervention studies in Texas and international settings (e.g., Uruguay, India, Africa). More than half of her publications include students or trainees as first authors, underscoring a strong commitment to mentoring and teaching the next generation of public health professionals and tobacco scientists.