Dr. Gorin is a Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut where she also serves as Director of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP).  InCHIP supports the development of health-related science across UConn campuses and strives to foster strong interdisciplinary research with the goal of improving public health.  Dr. Gorin’s own research focuses on developing innovative treatment strategies to improve weight loss and maintenance with an emphasis on interpersonal and environmental processes that impact weight management. Her work has established that weight loss programs have ripple effects on untreated household members and that the home environment is a critical context in which to intervene on eating and exercise behaviors. Dr. Gorin has developed and evaluated dyadic-based weight management interventions that have allowed for theory-based examinations of interpersonal mediators of behavior change.  Her current research is examining how best to intervene with couples to promote weight management, whether a peer-based program can improve weight loss maintenance, and how individual-level executive functioning skills and the support environment interact to influence weight regulating behaviors.

Dr. Leahey is an Associate 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.