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Ashley Gearhardt, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology in the clinical science area at the University of Michigan. 

While working on her doctorate in clinical psychology at Yale University, Dr. Gearhardt became interested in the possibility that certain foods may be capable of triggering an addictive process. To explore this further, she developed the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) to operationalize addictive eating behaviors, which has been linked with more frequent binge eating episodes, an increased prevalence of obesity and patterns of neural activation implicated in other addictive behaviors. It has been cited over 800 times and translated into over 10 foreign languages. 

Her areas of research also include investigating how food advertising activates reward systems to drive eating behavior and the development of food preferences and eating patterns in infants. She has published over 100 academic publications, and her research has been featured in media outlets, such as ABC News, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR. In 2023, Dr. Gearhardt testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in a hearing about factors contributing to and options to address the obesity and diabetes epidemics, where she shared her expertise on the role of addiction to ultra-processed foods in the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes.