Michele Merkin (born June 25, 1975 ) is a model and a television host who currently hosts The Next Best Thing on ABC. She hosted GSN's series Extreme Dodgeball in 2004.

Born in San Francisco of half-Swedish, half-Russian Jewish descent, Michele Merkin attended boarding school in England before studying medicine at UCLA. While there she was offered the chance to model in Europe for such magazines as ELLE, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. She has hosted E! News Daily, NBC's For Love or Money and VH1's Red Eye.

Success in that arena led her to do more than 75 commercials, ranging from soft drinks and hair care to finance and electronics. She would fulfill her hosting ambitions on such programs as The Movie Fan Show, The Love Report for Studios USA, Close-up Hollywood, Buy TV, Movie Watch and Attack of the Show!.

Merkin appeared as popular video game character Joanna Dark from Perfect Dark commercials[4] and in-store promotions for the N64 cartridge; Merkin's hair was cut and dyed for the appearances.