Carlos M. Grilo, PhD, professor of psychiatry and of psychology and founding director of the Program for Obesity, Weight and Eating Research (POWER) at Yale, has been chosen to receive the Sidney J. Blatt Award from the Yale Department of Psychiatry’s Psychology Section.
The award recognizes Grilo for his outstanding contributions to psychology research, education, and clinical practice. It is typically given to a Yale psychology section faculty member whose contributions embody Dr. Blatt’s outstanding commitment to research scholarship, teaching, and clinical practice.
Grilo is an internationally recognized expert on eating disorders, obesity, and manifestations of disordered eating across the weight spectrum and developmental eras. He has published over 525 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and has been recognized as the world’s top expert in binge-eating disorder (ExpertScape) and among the top lifetime experts in eating disorders (ScholarGSP).
Grilo has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for nearly 30 years and has served as principal investigator for 20 NIH grants. His current work focuses on controlled treatment studies testing cognitive-behavioral, behavioral, scalable treatments, and various pharmacological interventions for eating/weight disorders in diverse patient groups/settings. His current work, which spans epidemiological to clinical settings, also integrates laboratory and neurobiological methods to investigate the nature and mechanisms of change.
In his capacity as director of POWER, Grilo provides leadership of this entirely grant-funded clinical-research and training program focused on eating/weight disorders. POWER provides research training to students/trainees (undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral, and early-stage faculty) with interests in patient-oriented research and academic careers.
The Sidney J. Blatt Award at Yale was established in 2012. Dr. Blatt came to Yale in 1960 as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. He joined the Department of Psychiatry in 1963 and served as professor of psychiatry and of psychology, and chief of the Psychology Section of the Department of Psychiatry for almost 50 years. He distinguished himself as an analytic clinician, an empirical researcher, a personality theorist, and a beloved teacher and mentor.