Kelly Costello Allison, PhD, Director

Director, Center for Weight and Eating Disorders, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market St., Suite 3029, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3309

kca@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

(215) 898-2823

Kelly C. Allison, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders. She received her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Miami University.

Dr. Allison's research interests include the timing of eating, night eating syndrome, binge eating disorder, and the role of weight and eating behaviors on women’s health. She is also engaged in studies on bariatric surgery outcomes and clinical trials for weight and disordered eating. Dr. Allison enjoys providing psychotherapy related to weight management and disordered eating at CWED, and she provides pre-operative bariatric surgery psychological evaluations at Penn Medicine’s bariatric program. Additionally, she provides supervision and mentoring for pre- doctoral psychology students, medical students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members.

Dr. Allison has also worked at the Philadelphia Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center where she provided cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia to veterans through the National Telemental Health program.

Dr. Allison is a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders and a Fellow of The Obesity Society. She has published over 185 peer-reviewed papers and chapters, and two books.

Recent publications include:

• Allison KC, McCuen-Wurst C, Raevsky A, Holmes N, Goldbach M, Guerra CE, Rendle KA, Cadet TJ, Krouse RS, Tchou J. The Group-basEd Telehealth behavioral WEight Loss Program Among Breast Cancer Survivors: A Pilot and Feasibility Study. Obes Sci Pract. 2024 Dec 21;10(6):e70023. doi: 10.1002/osp4.70023. PMID: 39713088; PMCID: PMC11662970.
• Sarwer DB, Wadden TA, Ashare R, Spitzer JC, McCuen-Wurst C, LaGrotte C, Williams N, Soans R, Tewksbury C, Wu J, Tajeu G, Allison KC. Psychopathology, disordered eating, and impulsivity as predictors of weight loss 24 months after metabolic and bariatric surgery. Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2024 Jul;20(7):634-642. doi: 10.1016/j.soard.2024.01.019. PMID: 38480031; PMCID: PMC11193608.
• Allison KC, Chao AM, Bruzas MB, McCuen-Wurst C, Jones E, McAllister C, Gruber K, Berkowitz RI, Wadden TA, Tronieri JS. A pilot randomized controlled trial of liraglutide 3.0 mg for binge eating disorder. Obes Sci Pract. 2022 Jul 26;9(2):127-136. doi: 10.1002/osp4.619. PMID: 37034559; PMCID: PMC10073825.
• Allison KC, Parnarouskis L, Moore MD, Minnick AM. Insomnia, Short Sleep, and Their Treatments: Review of Their Associations with Weight. Curr Obes Rep. 2024 Jun;13(2):203-213. doi: 10.1007/s13679-024-00570-3. PMID: 38776004; PMCID: PMC11150288.
• Allison KC, Hopkins CM, Ruggieri M, Spaeth AM, Ahima RS, Zhang Z, Taylor DM, Goel N. Prolonged, controlled daytime versus delayed eating impacts weight and metabolism. Current Biology, 31(3):650-657.e3, 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.092.