DARIEN, IL - The Sleep Research Society has selected three sleep and circadian scientists and a public health advocate as recipients of the 2022 SRS awards, which recognize excellence in sleep and circadian research and advocacy. The awards will be presented during the plenary session of the SLEEP 2022 annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies on Monday, June 6, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“I congratulate the 2022 recipients of the Sleep Research Society’s highest awards,” said SRS President H. Craig Heller. “The contributions of these leaders and advocates for sleep and circadian science are supporting the SRS mission through research, education, and public service.”
SRS members were invited to nominate colleagues for the awards. The 2022 SRS award recipients, who were selected by the SRS board of directors, are:
Thomas E. Scammell, M.D.
Distinguished Scientist Award for significant, original and sustained scientific contributions of a basic, clinical or theoretical nature to the sleep and circadian research field, made over an entire career
Dr. Scammell is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the department of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital. For the past 25 years, he has led a research laboratory at BIDMC focused on identifying the neural mechanisms that control sleep and wakefulness. He has received several NIH grants to study the control of sleep and wakefulness by the hypothalamus and brainstem, and much of his lab’s work now focuses on narcolepsy and identifying the pathways through which the orexin neuropeptides stabilize wakefulness and suppress cataplexy. Additional projects examine the interactions of sleep and pain, and the functions of arousal-promoting brainstem pathways.
Maiken Nedergaard, M.D.
Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award for novel and seminal discoveries of a basic, clinical or theoretical nature that have made a significant impact on the sleep field
Co-director of the department of neurology Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester, Dr. Nedergaard is a pioneer in the field of neuroglial signaling. Her discovery of the glymphatic system, a brain-wide fluid clearance system, was honored as one of Science Magazine's 10 “Breakthroughs of the Year” in 2013. She showed that the glymphatic system is activated during sleep and clears waste metabolites, but that in sleep disturbances, chronic diseases and aging, glymphatic transport declines, resulting in an increased risk of dementia. Nedergaard also has examined the states of astrocytes during sleep and wakefulness and has found that astrocytes are active participants in higher brain function and critical causal contributors to brain disease, laying out clear paths to new therapeutic avenues.
Kenneth P. Wright, Jr., Ph.D.
Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award for excellence in education related to the sleep and circadian research field
Wright, who has a doctorate degree in behavioral neuroscience/psychology, is a professor of distinction in the department of integrative physiology and director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has more than 25 years of experience in the sleep and circadian fields, has led individual and multicenter/team research grants, and has participated in multicenter clinical trials. Wright’s research is aimed at explaining the physiology of sleep and circadian rhythms in humans, understanding the health and safety consequences of sleep and circadian disruptions, and developing sleep and circadian medicine-based countermeasures to improve public health and safety. He is committed to training the next generation of leaders in the sleep and circadian fields and maintains a large undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate training program in sleep and circadian physiology.
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
The Public Service Award for significant and extraordinary contributions to the mission of SRS above and beyond research and educational activities
Ziporyn Snider is the cofounder and executive director of Start School Later/Healthy Hours, a nonprofit dedicated to school hours that allow for healthy sleep, as well as an award-winning author of numerous popular health and medical books. A Yale graduate, she earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago as a Searle Fellow in the history of science and medicine while conducting research in biopsychology. Ziporyn Snider is a former associate editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association and has written extensively on a wide range of health and medical issues for several consumer publications. She has been awarded science-writing fellowships by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
Photos are available upon request. For more information, please contact SRS Coordinator Kaitlan Willis at 630-737-9702, or kwillis@srsnet.org.
###
About the Sleep Research Society
The Sleep Research Society is a professional membership society that advances sleep and circadian science. The SRS provides forums for the exchange of information, establishes and maintains standards of reporting and classifies data in the field of sleep research, and collaborates with other organizations to foster scientific investigation on sleep and its disorders. The SRS also publishes the peer-reviewed, scientific journals Sleep and Sleep Advances.