She has been the principal investigator of four NIH grants and two Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research grants. All of these grants focus on physical activity, nutrition, obesity and/or the built environment. She earned a Best Contribution Award from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and also received an Early Investigator Award from the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. She was the chair for the Environmental and Contextual Factors in Health and Behavior Change section for the Society of Behavioral Medicine. She has served as a grant reviewer for the Wellcome Trust, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and National Institutes of Health. A social epidemiologist by training, Colabianchi earned a MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University.