Eric J. Moody, PhD, is the Associate Director and a Research Professor at the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND). He received his doctorate in Social Psychology and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Denver in 2007. His early research focused on shared interpersonal emotions and psychophysiology. Midway through his training, he became interested in autism and how shared emotions are related to the autism phenotype. This interest led him to collaborate with JFK Partners and a post-doctoral fellowship in autism assessment and public health/epidemiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Following this postdoc, he joined the Faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and expanded his research to include family supports, public health, community based participatory research, and health disparities. In 2018, Dr. Moody joined the University of Wyoming, College of Health Sciences as the Director of Research and Evaluation for WIND, and in 2022 was named Co-Associate Director of WIND.

In his role at WIND, Dr. Moody oversees all research and evaluation activities. Key among these is the Equality State Research Network (ESRN), which he directs. The ESRN is a community and practice-based research network to advance healthcare in Wyoming using Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) techniques. The ESRN is dedicated to ensuring that those who are most impacted by research are included as co-researchers. In particular, the ESRN ensures that those with disabilities are able to contribute to every step of the research process. Dr. Moody also serves as a co-director for the Wyoming Family to Family Health Information Center, focusing community-based methods to disseminate high-quality health information. He also directs WIND’s partnership with Wyoming Medicaid to ensure accurate and appropriate assessments for Medicaid waiver services. Finally, Dr. Moody is involved in numerous research projects focusing on intellectual and developmental disabilities. For instance, he was Co-Principal Investigator on a grant that developed and tested a parent-based mentoring program to improve well-being in families who have children newly diagnosed with autism. He is a Co-Investigator for the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), the largest study of its kind exploring the causes of autism. Through this study, he has worked to understand potential bias of autism screening and diagnostic tools. He is also working with Wyoming Title X network to improve access to reproductive healthcare for those with IDD. He also directs WIND research program related to Project ECHO, which is a capacity building program focused on a wide variety of issues related to disabilities.

Dr. Moody's research interests include understanding the social impairment in autism, exploring novel community-based interventions for those with developmental disabilities, especially for underserved groups, and engaged/inclusive research methods to improve the lives of those with disabilities.