Dr. Moran is the Paul R. McHugh Professor of Motivated Behaviors, Executive Vice Chair and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also has a joint appointment as Professor of International Health. Dr. Moran's research interests are in brain/behavior relationships as they apply to the controls of food intake and body weight. The work has focused on brain/gut peptides as feedback controls of meal size and how these signals interact with neural systems involved in overall energy balance and reward processing. His work has had a focus on how these may go awry in eating disorders and obesity. Dr. Moran collaborates broadly with clinicians working with patient populations around eating disorders and bariatric surgery and with public health investigators examining environmental factors contributing to the current obesity epidemic.

Dr. Moran is a fellow of the Obesity Society where he has served on Council and as Program Chair for Obesity Week. He is currently the chair of the Scientific Development Committee. He is also a past Board Member, Program Chair and President of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB).