Biography

Dr. Tricia Leahey is a Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences and Co-Director of the UConn Weight Management Research Group. She completed her clinical psychology internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Brown University with specializations in behavioral medicine and lifestyle interventions for obesity treatment. Dr. Leahey is a leader in the field of behavioral interventions for weight loss and weight loss maintenance. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating cost-effective lifestyle interventions for obesity treatment and on testing new approaches for weight loss maintenance. Specifically, Dr. Leahey is currently PI or Co-I on several large NIH trials that involve examining the effects of patient-provided care, web-based technologies, and behavioral economics strategies to promote weight loss or weight maintenance. Her research has been continuously funded by the NIH throughout her career. She was a standing member of the NIH’s Psychosocial Risk and Disease Prevention Study Section, has served as Chair or Co-Chair of NIH grant review panels, reviews for over 30 scientific journals, has over 50 publications, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. Dr. Leahey has received several awards for her work including The Obesity Society’s Excellence in Science in eHealth/mHealth Award and the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Research Citation Award. She has also been recognized for both her teaching and mentorship, including receipt of UConn’s Teaching Excellence Award and Brown University’s Psychology Research Mentor Award. Her research findings have been featured by major news outlets including NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, ABC News, Forbes, and The Huffington Post.