Sabrena Mervin-Blake is a senior project manager at the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative and
previously served as senior staff director for community engagement and equity in research cores
at the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Over her 21-year career in clinical research,
Mervin-Blake has served as director of research recruitment at both Duke and University of North
Carolina’s North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute and as a project leader with the
Clinical Events Classification group at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Earlier in her career, she
worked in industry with the small biotech company Karobio, where she focused on the discovery of
novel therapeutics and with the contract research organization PPD Discovery, where she focused on
preclinical research. She spent 10 years in basic science as a research analyst. Mervin-Blake received
a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of
Science in clinical research from the Campbell University College of Pharmacy.