Harvey Grill

Harvey Grill is a Professor and Director of the Obesity Unit at the Institute of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on neurobiological mechanisms of energy balance, obesity, and metabolic disorders. He holds a BA in Psychology from City College (CUNY), a PhD in Physiological Psychology from NYU, and completed postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University.

Research Interests include:

• Affective neuroscience: food reward, drug reward, and neural systems of feeding motivation
• Neurophysiology of sensation and perception: taste, gastrointestinal interoception, and vagal afferents
• Clinical translation: neural control of energy expenditure, obesity drug development, and diabetes treatment

Recent work emphasizes distributed neural circuits (hindbrain, hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex) and molecular signaling pathways (GLP-1, leptin, oxytocin) influencing food intake and energy balance. His studies highlight anatomically distributed systems integrating peripheral signals (e.g., ghrelin, vagal afferents) with central motivational processes.

Advising includes graduate student Hallie Wald and postdoctoral fellow Tito Borner. Key collaborations involve the Obesity Unit, Perelman School of Medicine, and translational initiatives in pharmaceutical research. His lab actively investigates pharmacological targets for obesity treatment, emphasizing chronic disease management strategies.

Labs/Teams: Director of the Obesity Unit, Institute of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Penn Medicine.