Since 2001 NSF has recognized and celebrated the achievements of individuals who have contributed to advancing the sleep field. The recipients of the National Sleep Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award have demonstrated either a direct connection to the NSF’s mission activities or supported/enabled NSF’s public health mission goals through their professional contributions to the field.
Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient:
Michael V. Vitiello, PhD
- Dr. Vitiello is Professor Emeritus, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at the University of Washington, a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a Fellow (Health Sciences) of the Gerontological Society of America. He has previously served as Chair of the NIH’s Sleep Disorders Advisory Board (SDRAB), President of the Sleep Research Society (SRS), and Scientific Program Chair of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
- He has served on numerous committees and advisory boards, including serving on the Board of the National Sleep Foundation (2004-2009). He is also Editor-in-Chief of Sleep Medicine Reviews and has served as an editorial board member of numerous other scientific journals. Dr. Vitiello was a member of numerous NSF Consensus Panels including NSF’s landmark 2015 Sleep Duration Guidelines, and 2016 Sleep Quality Recommendations as well as panels on Sleep Timing and Variability and NSF’s validated Sleep Satisfaction Tool. Dr. Vitiello currently chairs the National Sleep Foundation’s Population Health and Methodology Committee and recently was a panelist at the National Sleep Foundation’s Sleep and Aging Conference.
- Dr. Vitiello has researched the science of sleep and aging for more than 40 years and is the author of 600+ scientific articles, reviews, chapters, editorials and abstracts, with his work being cited more than 35,000 times.
Past NSF Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
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Dr. Hirshkowitz is a retired consulting professor at Stanford University School of Public Health and full professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Medicine. He was the founder and director of the Sleep Disorders and Research Center at the Michael E. DeBakey Houston Veteran Affairs Medical Center, and training director of the Baylor Sleep Medicine Fellowship Training Program. His research focused on sleep disorders including obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia, fatigue management, and workplace safety.
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He was a member of NSF’s Consensus Panels which produced NSF’s landmark 2015 Sleep Duration Guidelines, Sleep Quality Recommendations, and Sleep Satisfaction Tool. Dr. Hirshkowitz also actively represented NSF in its collaboration with the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) to develop definitions and sleep measurement and performance standards for consumer wearables and other devices.
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Dr. Hirshkowitz served on numerous national and international committees, NIH scientific review panels, and advisory boards, including having served on the Board of the National Sleep Foundation (2009-2017) and as its Chair from 2016-2017. He has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and served on the editorial board of multiple journals including Sleep Health, Sleep Medicine, and Sleep Research.
- Dr. Zee is the Director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine and Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that link alterations in sleep, circadian rhythms and sleep disorders with neurological and cardio-metabolic disorders, as well as the development of treatments for sleep and circadian based disturbances in clinical populations.
- Basic and clinical studies from Zee’s laboratory paved the way to novel treatments for disorders associated with sleep and circadian clock dysfunction. In addition, her current NIH sponsored research includes studies that examine the relationship between sleep and sleep disorders with metabolic and cardiovascular risk in populations at risk, such as older adults, and the effects of sleep disturbance on adverse pregnancy outcomes.
- Dr. Zee has served on numerous national and international committees, NIH scientific review panels, and advisory boards, including having served on the Board of the National Sleep Foundation (2004-2009). She is President-elect of the World Sleep Society, past President of the Sleep Research Society, and past Chair of the NIH Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board.
- Dr. Ancoli-Israel is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Research Director of its Sleep Medicine Clinic and Co-Director of the Gillin Laboratory of Sleep and Chronobiology, and Co-Director of the VA VISN-22 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center.
- Dr. Ancoli-Israel is one of the nation’s predominant experts in the field of sleeping disorders and sleep research in aging. She was the first at UCSD to be board certified in sleep medicine and behavioral sleep medicine. She has studied the longitudinal effect of sleep disorders on aging, the effect of circadian rhythms on sleep, therapeutic interventions for sleep problems in dementia, and the relationship of fatigue and circadian rhythms in cancer and other chronic illnesses. She is a past president of SRS and the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms, and was on the founding Executive Board of the National Sleep Foundation. Dr. Ancoli-Israel has over 300 publications in medical and psychiatric journals.
- Dr. Carskadon began her career in sleep research as an assistant in Dr. William Dement’s laboratory at Stanford University in 1970, receiving her doctorate with distinction in Neuro and Behavioral Sciences with a specialty in sleep research from Stanford in 1979 under Dr. Dement’s mentorship. She and Dr. Dement collaborated on a stream of research that culminated in the development and application of a standardized measure for daytime sleep tendency, the multiple sleep latency test.
- Dr. Carskadon went on to become Director of Chronobiology and Sleep Research at the E.P. Bradley Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University Medical School. She is past president of the Sleep Research Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and a member of the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board (NHLBI). She has been editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming, and associate editor of the journal Sleep and of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Her research has examined the relationship of the circadian timing system to the developing sleep-wake patterns of children and adolescents, and has raised public health issues regarding the consequences of insufficient sleep in adolescents.
- Dr. Chokroverty has been a leading force in sleep medicine for decades. His book, now in its 3rd or 4th edition Sleep Medicine was the textbook most useful for preparing for sleep medicine boards. Chokroverty’s book was the primer for graduate students and postdoc fellows.
- He is the Founder and editor in chief of the journal Sleep Medicine. This journal sought and broadened the field. It looked beyond the US and Europe and attracted more neurological research.
- He is the Founder of the World Association for Sleep Medicine, which became the leading International Sleep Society. It also early on focused on “sleep health” as indicated by its mission statement “Improving sleep health worldwide.”
- Dr. Czeisler is the Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine, Director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the field of basic and applied research on the physiology of the human circadian timing system and its relationship to the sleep-wake cycle. He has been Team Leader of the Human Performance Factors, Sleep and Chronobiology Team of NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute.
- Dr. Czeisler is a past president of Sleep Research Society, a Fellow of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a Diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London). He has served on and consulted to a number of national and international advisory committees, including the NIH Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and several others. Dr. Czeisler’s many honors include the Hilker Award in Occupational Medicine, William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award from AASM, Lord Adrian Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine, and NIOSH Director’s Award for Scientific Leadership in Occupational Safety and Health. He has published over 120 original reports in peer-reviewed journals, more than 75 review articles, 5 books/monographs, numerous research abstracts, and has lectured nationally and internationally.
- Dr. Dement (1928-2020) was a world authority on sleep, sleep deprivation and the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, and is frequently referred to as the “father of sleep medicine.” His discoveries transformed the science of sleep and the practice of sleep medicine as well as our understanding of the nature of sleep and its overall importance to human health and well-being. He received his M.D. and PhD. From the University of Chicago, where he participated in the first observations of Rapid Eye Movements (REM) during sleep.
- Dr. Dement was the first to recognize REM sleep as a distinct biological state with unique properties including vivid dreaming and muscle paralysis. In 1970, he founded the world’s first sleep disorders center and in 1975 founded the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Dr. Dement was co-editor of Principles and Practices of Sleep Medicine, the definitive textbook on the subject, and authored the first undergraduate textbook on sleep for the popular course he taught at Stanford University beginning in 1971. He was also the author of The Promise of Sleep, published in 1999. His tireless efforts to bring the benefits of sleep science to everyday life included chairing the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, and he has advocated for education to combat drowsy driving, for later start times for high schools, for reasonable work hours for interns and residents, and for inclusion of sleep in medical education as well as health curriculum.
- Dr. Gozal has been the leader in the field of pediatric sleep apnea for more than a decade.
- Scientifically, Dr. Gozal is a premier clinical, translational researcher in pulmonary and sleep medicine today. His written work is defined by 2 main scientific areas: respiratory control and basic and translational aspects of sleep apnea in children. Dr. Gozal was the first investigator in the U.S. to conclusively demonstrate that obstructive sleep apnea during childhood leads to adverse academic performance, and that such highly important morbidity is partially reversible with treatment. Since then, he has gone on to develop rodent models of sleep apnea, through which he has dissected some of the mechanisms underlying CNS morbidity and other end-organ injury processes in the context of intermittent hypoxia during sleep.
- Dr. Gozal has published more than 550 papers, co-edited 2 books and has performed collaborative international research in Cameroon, Ecuador, Italy, France, Peru, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain.
- Dr. Guilleminault (1938-2019) was Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and was Associate Director of Stanford’s Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Center. A pioneer in sleep disorders research, Dr. Guilleminault received his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1968 and soon after joined the faculty at Stanford. Generally credited with coining the term “obstructive sleep apnea syndrome” in 1972, his primary research included cardio-respiratory dysfunction during sleep, SIDS, sleep apnea, narcolepsy and daytime somnolence, and the relationship of sleep to accidents, aging, dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.
- In 1978, with Dr. William Dement, Dr. Guilleminault co-founded the journal Sleep. He authored over a dozen books and monographs and hundreds of articles. His many honors include the Nathaniel Kleitman Award and William C. Dement Award from ASDA, and the Doctor “Honoris Causa” from the University of Liege in Belgium.
- Dr. Kryger was the first to diagnose and report obstructive sleep apnea in North America and was the first to demonstrate that this disease represents a risk for mortality. His group also reported the first data documenting an increased automobile accident rate in these patients. His research was the first to show the feasibility of using noninvasive techniques to ventilate post-polio patients in their homes. His laboratory elucidated the interaction between heart failure and sleep respiration, publishing the first systematic study of oxygen in this condition.
- He organized the first National Sleep Medicine Course. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation and has previously served as its Chairman. He received the William C. Dement Award for Academic Achievement in sleep medicine. In 2011, he received a Distinguished Scientist Award from the Canadian Sleep Society at the meeting of the World Association of Sleep Medicine. In 2013, he received the Mary Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award from the Sleep Research Society.
- He has mentored doctors in training from Canada, USA, Japan, China, France, Australia, Greece, and the Middle East. He has been president of both the Canadian Sleep Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
- Dr. Mignot discovered that narcolepsy, affecting one in 2,000 people, is caused by an immune-mediated destruction of 70,000 hypocretin/orexin neurons in the hypothalamus, also revealing hypocretins as a novel critical sleep-regulatory pathway. He conducted breakthrough and widely reported research locating the gene for narcolepsy in dogs.
- Dr. Mignot has received numerous research grants and honors, including National Sleep Foundation and National Institute of Health Research Awards, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and McKnight Neuroscience awards, Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award from the Sleep Research Society, the Drs. C. and F. Demuth 11th Award for Young Investigators in the Neurosciences, the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award in sleep disorders medicine, the CINP and ACNP awards in neuropharmacology, and the Jacobaeus Prize.
- He is the co-author of more than 200 original scientific publications, and he serves on the editorial board of scientific journals in the field of sleep and biology research. Dr. Mignot is an active member of several professional and governmental organizations. He has been President of the Sleep Research Society, Chair of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research Advisory board of the National institutes of Health, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Mignot served on the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation.
- Dr. Moore is Professor of Neurology Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, co-director of the Center on Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders, of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and the University of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Dr. Moore has served on a number of National Institutes of Health, Veterans Administration,15 editorial boards and as a member of the National Sleep Foundation’s Board of Directors. His research interests are in disorders of biological rhythms, movement disorders, and behavioral neurology. He is credited with discovering the function of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) as the circadian clock, as well as describing its organization. He is also credited with establishing the role of the mammalian retinohypothalamic tract (RHT) as a photic entrainment pathway.
- Dr. Moore’s research on Parkinson’s Disease included brain imaging focused primarily on two areas of the brain thought to play a role in controlling wakefulness and attention. Through these brain images, Moore observed evidence suggesting a degeneration of nerve cells in these two areas. This was the first time that nerve degeneration, a hallmark of Parkinson’s Disease, was observed in living patients. His many honors include the Ariens-Kappers Medal from the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research (1991), and the Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine from Harvard Medical School (2010). He is past president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, and served on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science.
- Dr. Pack received his MBChB in 1968 and PhD in mathematical modeling in 1976 from the University of Glasgow, after which he came to America to work in the Cardiovascular-Pulmonary Division of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Medicine. In 1982, Dr. Pack became Principal Investigator of a project studying the effects of sleepiness in the elderly and the role of sleep apnea, and has since been heavily involved in projects related to sleep and its disorders. From 1988 to 2008, Dr. Pack directed the Special Center of Research in sleep apnea funded by NIH, and directed the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology.
- In 1993, Dr. Pack was named Medical Director of the National Sleep Foundation. Under his leadership, NSF established its reputation as the leading voice in drowsy driving prevention. Dr. Pack is the author of over 240 original papers and chapters and has edited three books.
- Rechtschaffen is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Chicago, where he maintained a sleep research laboratory for 44 years, beginning in 1957. Many of the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who spent time in his lab went on to make independent scientific contributions to the field of sleep.
- Rechtschaffen conducted some of the first studies of insomnia, narcolepsy, hypersomnia, determinants and phenomenology of dream consciousness, interactions between circadian rhythms and sleep homeostasis, sleep in mammals and reptiles, and the effects of sleep deprivation. His many awards include the Nathaniel Kleitman Award, and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Sleep Research Society, which Dr. Rechtschaffen co-founded. He coauthored the Manual for Standardized Terminology, Techniques and Scoring System for Sleep Stages of Human Subjects.
- Dr. Roehrs is Director of Research at the Sleep Disorders and Research Center of Henry Ford Health System and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Wayne State University. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
- Dr. Roehrs’ research has focused on drug abuse and the psychopharmacology of sleep and daytime alertness, on the causes and consequences of daytime sleepiness and sleep and pain. He has published over 200 papers and chapters on his research. He has served as a scientific grant reviewer for NIH and as a scientific paper reviewer for numerous journals. He has served on the Scientific Program Committee of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) and on the Executive Committee of the Sleep Research Society, as well as serving as Chair of the APSS.
- Dr. Rosekind is an internationally recognized expert on human fatigue and is credited with including innovative research and implementing programs in all modes of transportation. He launched his professional career as part of the Fatigue Countermeasures Group at NASA and eventually served as the group’s director. He was also appointed as a board member to the National Transportation Safety Board from June 2010 until December 2014, after which he was appointed as the 15th Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
- Dr. Rosekind’s work has been widely published. He has been the recipient of several awards, including NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal; the Mark O. Hatfield Award for Public Policy from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine; and fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
- Dr. Roth is Director of Research and Chief of Sleep Medicine at Henry Ford Health Sciences Center in Detroit, and is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan College of Medicine. His contributions to the sleep field are broad, ranging from prolific research productivity and scholarship, to multiple national leadership positions and to the mentoring of numerous students and colleagues. Dr. Roth is the only person to serve as President of the National Sleep Foundation, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. In 1994, Dr. Roth was elected Chair of the inaugural Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board for the National Center of Sleep Research (NIH). He has also chaired the World Health Organization’s worldwide project on sleep and health, has chaired and served on numerous committees of all national sleep organizations, and has been a valued advisor to colleagues, government agencies and industry.
- Dr. Roth’s research has examined sleep loss, sleep fragmentation, sleep pathologies and the effects of pharmacologic agents on sleep-wake function. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sleep, as well as on the editorial boards of Sleep Review, Stress Medicine, Advances in Therapy and Human Psychopharmacology, and he has co-edited Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine.
- Originally from New Zealand, Dr. Thorpy is a professor of clinical neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center. In addition to treating patients, Dr. Thorpy conducts research in narcolepsy, insomnia and sleep apnea. He has been President of the New York Society of Sleep Medicine. In 1993, he received the Nathaniel Kleitman Award from the American Sleep Disorders Association, one of the field’s highest honors.
- Dr. Thorpy has published extensively on narcolepsy, insomnia and sleep disorders, including more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine. His numerous books include the Encyclopedia of Sleep and Sleep Disorders, Narcolepsy: a Clinical Guide, Parasomnias, and SleepMultiMedia, a digital textbook on sleep Medicine.
- Dr. Walsh is the Executive Director and Senior Scientist of St. Luke’s Sleep Medicine and Research Center, visiting Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University and Adjunct Professor of psychology at Saint Louis University. He also serves as Executive Director of the Academic Alliance for Sleep
Research. He has been an educator, researcher, mentor, author and healthcare professional for over 25 years. He founded two sleep centers in St. Louis, and he has lectured nationally and internationally. He has published over 130 articles, book chapters and monographs related to sleep. - Dr. Walsh has been the principal investigator on more than 70 research projects; his primary fields of interest include the pharmacological treatment of insomnia, countermeasures for shift work, and the relationship between sleep loss and cognitive function. He has contributed to the development of sleep organizations and institutions, translating research findings into effective public health policies, and has testified many times before U.S. Congressional committees about sleep problems and disorders in America. Walsh served as NSF’s Board Chairman and in that role strengthened NSF’s educational, research and public policy missions. His many awards include AASM’s Nathaniel Kleitman Award for Distinguished Service and Sen. Mark Hatfield Public Policy Award and the Lewis University Alumni Achievement in Psychology.
- Dr. Westbrook is Clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine at UCLA and Chief Medical Officer of Advanced Brain Monitoring, Inc. He has been actively involved in the professional organizations associated with sleep disorders. He served as President of the American Sleep Disorder Association (ASDA) and member of the Board of Directors and Standards of Practice Committee and was acknowledged by the ASDA with a Distinguished Service Award in 1992.
- Since 1991, Dr. Westbrook has presented over 100 guest lectures to professional organizations, was Editor-in-Chief of Sleep Medicine Review, an editor for the journal Sleep, a guest reviewer for Chest and an Ad Hoc reviewer for The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Westbrook has co-authored five book chapters and five review papers relating to sleep medicine and over 15 journal articles and 13 abstracts. Dr. Westbrook received his medical degree from Stanford University in 1960. He was a clinical fellow and Associate Professor of Medicine at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, MN and founding Director of the Sleep Disorder Centers at the Mayo Clinic from 1980 through 1989 and at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA from 1989 through 1995. From 1995 to 2001 he was President of Pacific Sleep Medicine, a network of sleep specialists in Southern California providing diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Dr. Westbrook received his M.D. and B.S. from Stanford University.
Notable NSF Award Recipients
- Dr. Acebo has a long interest in sleep assessment, including mother-infant interaction and infant sleep/wake patterns, and helped develop recording/scoring systems for infant and adult sleep/wake patterns using a pressure sensitive mattress pad, one of the early uses of motility recordings to estimate patterns outside the lab. In 1990 she joined Dr. Mary Carskadon and others at Brown University to assess and validate sleep/wake measures from a wrist-worn actigraphy system, first in infants and young children, then adolescents. She was invited to speak about actigraphy at numerous APSS Meet the Professor sessions and other national, local and regional sleep meetings.
- Dr. Acebo was co-investigator and primary data analyst on several of Dr. Carskadon’s NIH grants on sleep and circadian rhythms in children and adolescents, and is an author on over 50 articles and chapters. She has served on the editorial boards of the journal Sleep and Journal of Sleep Research. She served on the SRS Board of Directors and headed the committee that developed the society’s first comprehensive website.
- Dr. Badia (1930-2016) taught at Bowling Green State University in the mid-1960’s. In 1980, Dr. Badia was given the title of Distinguished University Professor, the highest honor Bowling Green can bestow. He has been the major advisor to 22 PhDs, more than half of whom are doing research on sleep in academic or clinical settings.
- Dr. Badia gained an international reputation through his publications and presentations at scientific meetings in the U.S., Canada and Europe. He also co-authored two books on research methods. Dr. Badia was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1982. His research included such topics as cognitive activity in sleep, sensory processes in sleep, circadian rhythms and the effects of bright light on melatonin, body temperature and performance.
- Dr. Belenky is Director and Research Professor, Washington State University, Spokane. His groundbreaking research examines the critical questions of sleep and performance in people going about their everyday lives. Dr. Belenky is also heading studies investigating how sleep restriction affects the performance of professionals in high-stress jobs with long hours and irregular schedules, including police officers and first-year doctors.
- Dr. Belenky received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University in 1966 and his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1971. While attending medical school, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. William Dement, the father of sleep medicine. Dr. Belenky completed a residency in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine in 1975. Much of Dr. Belenky’s pioneering research was conducted during his years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where he served as the director of the Division of Neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
- Dr. Eastman studied sleep under Alan Rechtschaffen, PhD, at the University of Chicago. In 1987 she established the Biological Rhythms Research Lab for studying human circadian rhythms, and investigated seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and bright light treatment of SAD. Dr. Eastman’s research has focused on developing practical solutions to alleviate problems associated with shift work, jet lag and other disorders created by modern society such as delayed sleep phase disorder. She was commissioned by NASA to develop sleep and bright light schedules for astronauts to reset their circadian clocks in preparation for space shuttle missions.
- Dr. Eastman has served on the editorial boards of the journal Sleep, Journal of Biological Rhythms, Chronobiology International, Nature, and Science of Sleep. She has published more than 60 original reports in peer-reviewed journals, more than 20 reviews and book chapters and numerous research abstracts.
- Dr. Hartmann (1934-2013) was a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and was director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital for many years. He authored 350 articles and abstracts and 10 books, including The Nature and Functions of Dreaming.
- Dr. Hartmann was involved in research on sleep, dreaming and nightmares, and sleep disorders. He first established the Ultradian Cycle (REM/non-REM) as a basic cycle of mammalian life. He performed early longitudinal studies of sleep patterns in normal humans, schizophrenics and bipolar patients. His many pharmacological studies included the usefulness of L-Tryptophan in treating insomnia.
- Dr. Hauri (1933-2013) was a founder of the American Sleep Disorders Association, former director of the Mayo Clinic Insomnia Program and former co-director of the Sleep Disorders Clinic. His books and publications include No More Sleepless Nights, and the seminal brochure The Sleep Disorders, first published in 1977.
- Dr. Hauri started his career in 1961 as a technician in Dr. Allan Rechtschaffen’s lab. Though he always spent the majority of his time as a college professor in psychology or as a clinician treating patients, he still found time to participate in research. His sleep research focused on the diagnosis of various types of insomnia and their psychological/behavioral treatment, such as biofeedback, sleep hygiene, analysis of clusters within insomnia, daytime consequences of chronic insomnia and more. Dr. Hauri’s educational efforts included over 500 professional lectures on all continents except Australia.
- Dr. Mendelson is a consultant in psychopharmacology and was formerly Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Pharmacology and Director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University of Chicago. He has held professorships at Ohio State University and the University of New York at Stony Brook. He was also Chief of the Section on Sleep Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health and Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Cleveland Clinic.
- Among his many honors is the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award from the American Sleep Disorders Association, and he is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has served on the board of the International Journal of Sleep and Wakefulness and the American Psychiatric Association Handbook of Psychiatric Measures. In 1997, Dr. Mendelson was President of the Sleep Research Society. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books, and published over 190 peer-reviewed papers on various aspects of sleep research.
- Dr. Orr is President Emeritus and Founding Board Member of the Lynn Health Science Institute in Oklahoma City, OK, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Orr has published extensively on a wide variety of topics in sleep medicine. His publications include some of the initial descriptions of sleep apnea syndrome and its pathophysiology. His research interests include sleep and gastrointestinal disorders, autonomic function during sleep, and sleep related respiratory disorders. His body of work in sleep includes over 250 publications on topics including the role of sleep in the development of acid reflux disease and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as the neurobiology of sleep and the causes of pathological sleepiness.
- Dr. Orr is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, and was among the first group of sleep professionals certified in sleep medicine. He served as the first Chairman of the Education Committee of what is now the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He is a Fellow in both the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Gastroenterology Association and he has served on the Research Committee and the Educational Affairs Committee of the American College of Gastroenterology. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation from 1995-2005. He was one of the founders of the NSF’s Pickwick Club, which awarded fellowships to 25 postdoctoral sleep researchers. Dr. Orr received the NSF Service Award in 2006. He was recently noted as one of the Significant Early Contributors to Sleep Medicine by the Sleep Research Society.
- Professor Spielman (1947-2015) served on ten NIH review committees, and on the Board of Directors of both the AASM and the ABSM. He has participated with his colleagues on the editorial boards of the journals Sleep and Journal of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and on task forces and committees such as fellowship training, individual and center accreditation, examination, nosology, and non-pharmacological treatment of insomnia. He was the chair of the Institutional Review Board at City College for 15 years. His awards include the Distinguished Service Award, AASM, the Helmut Schmidt Award, ABSM, and the Peter Hauri Distinguished Career Achievement Award for 2014, Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
- Professor Spielman published on a wide range of sleep disorders topics with a primary focus on insomnia assessment and treatment. He co-authored a popular book on insomnia with the senior author and longtime collaborator Paul Glovinsky (The Insomnia Answer, 2006). He devised a popular model of insomnia called the 3P model (Predisposing, Precipitating and Perpetuating Factors), 1986, and with colleagues in 1987, and a widely used treatment for insomnia called Sleep Restriction Therapy (with colleagues in 1987).
- Professor Sullivan, a native of Australia, is a fellow of both the Academy of Science and the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is credited as the inventor of CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea. The impact that CPAP has had in the field of sleep medicine would be difficult to overstate. It is fair to say that no other single achievement in the field of sleep medicine has been more important or beneficial than the introduction of CPAP for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.
- Professor Sullivan developed CPAP therapy in 1980, publishing his first article on the therapy in 1981. CPAP therapy received little acceptance until the mid-1980s when reports of its efficacy became more widespread. Professor Sullivan worked with Doctor Peter Farrell in founding ResMed in 1988 and was chairman of their medical advisory board until 2003. He also established Pediatric Sleep Services at both the New Children’s Hospital and Sydney Children’s Hospital, in Sydney, Australia and was responsible for the training of a generation of currently practicing sleep clinicians. He is an author on 175 peer-reviewed articles.
- Dr. Wearley served on the Board of the National Sleep Foundation and as its President from 1996 to 1999. Her interest in sleep stemmed from close family members’ struggle with Narcolepsy and her frustration with the lack of public information on sleep, especially on Narcolepsy. During her tenure, she was part of the search committees for NSF Executive Directors, established standard operating procedures for human resources, fundraising and corporate sponsorships.
- Dr. Wearley’s career in the pharmaceutical world helped the NSF gain an understanding of how it could partner with the marketing efforts of that industry to build awareness of the sleep field. She retired from Johnson and Johnson in 2004 and now owns her own consulting business.