MARCH 20, 2026
Meredith E. Gansner, MD
Assistant Professor
Attending Psychiatrist
University of Rochester Medical Center
About the Presentation: Despite high-profile news stories about adolescent deaths from fentanyl-laced prescription pills purchased online, few research studies have examined the practice of online drug purchasing among teenagers and young adults. Studies that do exist are cross-sectional and reliant upon participant recall and subjective data only. This talk highlights temporal relationships between use of specific social media platforms and online drug purchases in a sample of U.S. youth, identified through longitudinal collection of sensor-derived measures and survey data.
About the Presenter: Dr. Meredith Gansner is an assistant professor and attending psychiatrist at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Her research primarily focuses on understanding different types of high-risk digital media use in adolescents and young adults. For her research, she has received a K23 career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a Dupont Warren Fellowship Grant and Shore Faculty Development Award through Harvard Medical School, and pilot funding through a P50 ALACRITY Center grant. She has written articles about mental health and digital media for The Psychiatric Times, WBUR Cognoscenti, The Boston Globe, and Slate magazine. She also authored the book Teen Depression Gone Viral, about the complexities of treating adolescent depression in the digital age.