Professor Kim Gans received a five-year, $3 million grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration For Community Living, Administration on Aging Innovations in Nutrition Programs and Services entitled “Evaluating the impact and sustainability of enhanced home-delivered meal program services on older adults’ health and well-being”. Kim is Co-PI of this grant along with Caitlin Caspi from Allied Health and Meg Grady, Director of Meals on Wheels Rhode Island. The goal of the project is to implement and test the effectiveness of an enhanced Home-Delivered Meals service delivery approach that includes community health worker interactions and supplemental healthy grocery bags to address diet quality, food and nutrition security, loneliness, and health-related quality of life for older adults.

KVIA-TV published a story entitled “Breaking down racial disparities in diabetes prevalence” cited two studies by Professor Rebecca Puhl. Read the story here.

Also, the Society for Human Resource Management published a story entitled “Laws, Policies Can Counter Weight Discrimination at Work” quoting Rebecca.

Professor Marlene Schwartz was recognized as the 2023 Michael & Susan Dell Center Lectureship in Child Health Award Recipient on Thursday.  Her keynote presentation in Houston was titled “The Past, Present, and Future of School Nutrition”.

Congratulations to Professor Kim Gans, winner of the Center for Career Development, Career Everywhere Award, as the Colleague-Nominated Faculty Career Advocate of the Year.

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.