Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center

Mary Carskadon, PhD

Director of the Chronobiology and Sleep Research Laboratory at Bradley Hospital

Professor of psychiatry and human behavior at theWarren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Adjunct professor in Brown University's psychology department

Background Information

Mary Carskadon, PhD is a a diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine. She has a doctorate in neuro- and biobehavioral sciences from Stanford University, with a specialty in sleep research.

Carskadon is a past president of the Sleep Research Society, a co-founder of the Northeastern Sleep Society and organized the Women in Sleep Research interest group of the Sleep Reseacrh Society. She has served on the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research advisory board and as a member of the Development and Behavior Working Group of the National Children's Study. She is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors, National Space Biomedical Research Institute. Carskadon is an associate editor of Behavioral Sleep Medicine.

Carskadon's research reflects a long-standing interest in the fundamental organization of sleeping and waking patterns in people. In the late 1970s and 1980s, she focused on daytime sleepiness, and a continuing thread in her work examines the changing patterns of sleep and daytime sleepiness in children and adolescents, and includes assessing behavior when confronted with changing school schedules and demands of part-time employment.

Carskadon has been featured in numerous news stories and programs, including Discovery Health, PBS "Frontline," BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Research Interests

Mary A. Carskadon, PhD, is an expert in sleep patterns, particularly in children and adolescents. As director of the Chronobiology and Sleep Research Laboratory at Bradley Hospital, the nation's oldest children's psychiatric hospital, Carskadon has raised public health issues regarding the consequences of insufficient sleep in adolescents, as well as concerns about early starting times of schools. Recent research has also focused on circadian rhythms in adolescents as a function of puberty; the role of circadian phase preference on daytime sleepiness patterns; and the influence of parental alcohol use history and of alcohol use on sleep patterns and circadian rhythms of young people.

Honors

Carskadon received the Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award of the American Sleep Disorders Association (1991), an honorary doctor of science degree from Gettysburg College (1999), the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Sleep Foundation (2003), and the Mark O. Hatfield Public Policy Award of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (2003).

She continued to receive honors in 2003 as the recipient of the Bradley Hospital Benchmarks of Excellence Award for Academic Excellence for the Sleep Laboratory.

In 2005, she was the recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award of the Sleep Research Society for "outstanding effort in disseminating basic and clinical sleep research as a mentor and teacher, as well as through public education." The award is now named the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award.

Selected Publications

Wolfson, A.R. and Carskadon, M.A. A survey of factors influencing high school start times. NASSP Bulletin 89 (642):47-66, 2005.

Jenni, O.G., Van Reen, E., and Carskadon, M.A. Regional differences of the sleep electroencephalogram in adolescents. J. Sleep Res.14 (2): 141-147, 2005.

Taylor, D.J., Jenni, O.G., Acebo, C., and Carskadon, M.A. Sleep tendency during extended wakefulness: insights into adolescent sleep regulation. J. Sleep Res.14 (3): 239-244, 2005.

Arnedt, J.T., Owens, J., Crouch, M., Stahl, J., and Carskadon, M.A. Neurobehavioral performance of residents after heavy night call vs after alcohol ingestion. JAMA 294 (9): 1025-1033, 2005.

Fallone, G., Acebo, C., Seifer, R., Carskadon, M.A. Experimental restriction of sleep opportunity in children: Effects on teacher ratings. Sleep 28 (12): 1561-1567, 2005.

Jenni, O.J., Achermann, P., and Carskadon, M.A. Homeostatic sleep regulation in adolescents. Sleep 28 (11): 446-1454, 2005.

Acebo, C., Sadeh, A., Seifer, R., Tzischinsky, O., Hafer, A., and Carskadon, M.A. Sleep/wake patterns derived from activity monitoring and maternal report for healthy 1- to 5-year-old children. Sleep 28 (12):1568-1577, 2005.

Van Reen, E., Jenni, O.G., and Carskadon, M.A. Effects of alcohol on sleep and the sleep electroencephalogram in healthy young women. Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res. (in press).

Roemmich, J.N., Barkley, J.E., D’Andrea, L., Nikova, M., Rogol, A.D., Carskadon, M.A., and Suratt, P.M. Increases in overweight after adenotonsillectomy in overweight children with obstructive sleep disordered breathing is associated with decreases in motor activity and hyperactivity. Pediatrics (in press).

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