November 6, 2023 | Danielle Faipler

New Associate Director of InCHIP Hopes to Support Collaborative, Community-Engaged Health Research

Caitlin Caspi, Associate Professor of Allied Health Sciences, will serve as Associate Director of InCHIP

Aerial image of the University of Connecticut during Fall 2023.

(Thomas Rettig / UConn Photo)

UConn Associate Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences, Caitlin Caspi, has been appointed as Associate Director of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP).

“We are thrilled to welcome Caitlin as InCHIP’s new Associate Director. Caitlin has a long and impressive history of securing grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and working with community partners to mitigate unique food security challenges. She is a talented teacher and mentor and I look forward to working with her in this new capacity,” says Director of InCHIP Tricia Leahey.

In addition to her faculty role within Allied Health Sciences, Caspi is the Director of Food Security Initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health where she has focused on multidisciplinary and community-engaged research that analyzes policies and interventions to address diet-related health disparities.

Image of Caitlin Caspi, Director of Food Security Initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health and Allied Health Sciences Associate Professor
Caitlin Caspi, Director of Food Security Initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, and Associate Professor of Allied Health Sciences

“I am excited to take on this new role at InCHIP and become more involved in planning strategic initiatives to encourage collaboration and community partnerships to improve public and human health. The most rewarding projects that I have worked on have been collaborative, multidisciplinary, and engaged with the community. I want to lift those up here at InCHIP and continue growth in that area,” says Caspi.

Caspi has been with InCHIP since 2020 when she came to UConn’s Department of Allied Health Sciences and the Rudd Center.

Prior to coming to UConn, Caspi was an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health from 2014 to 2020. Caspi earned her Doctor of Science in 2012 at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota.

Throughout her career, Caspi has been recognized for her research excellence, public engagement, and teaching.

Caspi has been the Principal Investigator of projects to assess how economic policies shape food access and health. One current study funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases set out to understand how a minimum wage increase in Minneapolis, Minnesota affected diet-related outcomes compared to a control community in Raleigh, North Carolina. Caspi and her collaborators followed a cohort of low-wage workers annually from 2018 to 2022. Because this period also encompassed the pandemic, she also received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program to conduct qualitative research on the impact of COVID-19 economic relief measures in the study sample.

Caspi is also the Co-Principal Investigator on a $2.89 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living to evaluate the effectiveness of new programming that Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island is implementing to improve nutrition among older adults. Kim Gans, professor of human development and family sciences, is collaborating with Caspi on this study.

She is also currently working with the Chrysalis Center in Hartford on an evaluation to maximize the impact of its Food Hub to better serve the greater Hartford community. The Chrysalis Center Food Hub seeks to reduce food insecurity and improve access to fresh and nutritious foods through a variety of innovative programs and initiatives. Caspi will work with community partners to identify gaps in outreach efforts and develop the Chrysalis Center’s strategic plan. This project builds on her years of research working with food banks and food pantries to improve the healthfulness of food and experience of clients facing food insecurity.

In addition to community-engaged research, Caspi will be involved in strategic planning, research development, and early investigator support initiatives that align with InCHIP’s mission and values. Caspi has considerable experience navigating the NIH grant submission and review process. She has served as a grant reviewer for InCHIP’s Dissertation Assistantship Award and has been a co-investigator on InCHIP seed awards.

InCHIP is a large university-wide, multidisciplinary research institute with more than 120 principal investigators from nearly every school and college across UConn. Founded in 2002 as a center for HIV research, InCHIP has expanded its scope to focus on the broad spectrum of public and human health research.