Dr. Keith Bellizzi is trained in gerontology, behavioral medicine, and public health. He has spent the last two decades studying resilience, cancer survivorship, healthy aging, and behavioral change. Prior to joining UConn in 2008, he was a Program Officer and Health Scientist in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and graduate of the preeminent Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program at the NCI.

Motivated by his own personal experience with cancer, Dr. Bellizzi has dedicated his life to improving the lives of individuals with cancer and their families. His current research focuses on 1) mechanisms and outcomes of resilience trajectories in adults with cancer, 2) using electronic health record and patient portal data to create frailty risk profiles to help clinicians make informed treatment decisions for older patients, and 3) examining social determinants of accelerated aging in a diverse population of older adults with cancer. Dr. Bellizzi is Editor of the Cancer and Aging Handbook and Senior Associate Editor of Translational Behavioral Medicine. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health and non-profit organizations and has been featured in U.S. News and World Report, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Australian Financial Review, Psychology Today, and many other media outlets.

Outside of work, Keith spends his time with his three girls, remodeling projects in his house, writing and blogging, mentoring, traveling and making memories with friends, and exploring many of the epic mountain bike trail systems in the U.S and Canada.

Associate Professor Laura Mauldin was quoted in an article in The Atlantic titled, “Long Covid is Being Erased—Again”. Read the article here.

Vida Samuel was selected to the 2023 cohort at The Campaign School at Yale (https://www.tcsyale.org/) this summer. The Campaign School is a bipartisan, weeklong boot camp for women wishing to run for public office or others who want to manage women’s campaigns. CT’s Lt. Governor Bysiewicz and Johanna Hayes and Gabby Giffords are alumni of the program. The cohort will include 80 national and international participants – primarily women and four men who run women’s campaigns. Vida is also a recipient of one of Fairfield County’s Community Fund inaugural scholarships.

Congratulations to Rachel Tambling who will be officially be promoted to Professor, and Caitlin Lombardi who will officially be promoted to Associate Professor with tenure as of August 31st!

Professor Keith Bellizzi was featured in UConn Today discussing the problems with replacing human interactions with patient portals in health care settings. Read the article here.

Professor Rebecca Puhl was recently interviewed by The Associated Press about potential effects of new anti-obesity medications on societal weight stigma. Read the AP article here.

Rebecca was also interviewed by Fortune about new legislation proposed in NYC to ban weight discrimination.

The Washington Post recently interviewed Professor Rebecca Puhl about legislation to address weight discrimination. Read the Washington Post article here. Rebecca was also recently interviewed by National Geographic about weight stigma in family and healthcare settings. Read the National Geographic article here.

Congratulations to Terry Berthelot, who received a CLAS Teaching Enhancement Grant for her project to update HDFS 3530