Dr. Mikel Merritt is a prescribing psychologist with the
United States Air Force.
He earned
his PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in August of 2006.
The final year of his doctoral studies,
he commissioned with the US Air Force to complete an internship and has gone on
to serve for ten years as an Active Duty psychologist, deploying once in
support of Operation Enduring Freedom to Afghanistan.
He is currently stationed at Whiteman AFB, MO where he
serves as the Mental Health Flight Commander, supervising a team of mental
health providers including active duty and civilian Social Workers,
Psychologists and Psychiatrists.
During the course of his career Dr.
Merritt has been stationed at Andrews AFB, MD; Holloman AFB, in NM; Yokota AB, in Tokyo prefecture Japan;
and is currently at Whiteman AFB, MO.
He has had the pleasure of being involved in humanitarian missions as
part of the Humanitarian Aid Rapid Response Team (HARRT) for the Pacific
region. As part of the HARRT, Dr.
Merritt was deployed to Indonesia to assist in providing care to over 4,000. While working in Indonesia he was asked
to provide training to the Indonesian Air Force on Post-traumatic Stress
Disorder and Combat and Operational Stress.
While he was stationed in Japan,
Dr. Merritt played a key role in assisting the Yokota population after the 2011
Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear meltdown. He created trainings to assist
the members of the base population who remained in Japan, and also those who
elected to leave under the Voluntary Authorized Departure. When many of the base residents
returned, Dr. Merritt was again prepared to help by developing an integrated
return to Whiteman training to ease the transition.
In his role at Whiteman AFB, Dr.
Merritt serves as the installation suicide prevention program manager, a role
that has led him to create several new innovative programs in an effort to
assist to the military men and women he serves with. His efforts at Whiteman led to him being named the 2014
Field Grade Officer of the Year (pictured with his wife at the annual awards
ceremony).
Dr. Merritt has three children, Eleanor, Isaac and Ethan. As a family they enjoy fishing, “Family
Movie Night,” and various activities in which his children participate. Dr. Merritt currently plans to serve
another ten years in the Air Force before retiring to return to Nebraska (where
he is licensed) and practice psychology
