Mary A. Carskadon is an American sleep researcher. She is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the director of the Bradley Hospital Sleep Research Laboratory and the COBRE Center for Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.[1]
Mary Alice Carskadon, born in Illinois in July 1947, is the daughter of Gretchen (née Shumaker) and Edward Bell Carskadon.[2] During her childhood in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, she was active in the local Brownie troop,[3] and played tennis[4][5] and field hockey.[6]
Carskadon studied psychology at Gettysburg College, graduating as a distinguished alumna in 1969,[7] and the college bestowed an honorary doctor of sciences degree on her in 1999.[8] She earned a doctorate with distinction in neuro- and biobehavioral sciences at Stanford University in 1979, with a dissertation titled, Determinants of Daytime Sleepiness: Adolescent Development, Extended and Restricted Nocturnal Sleep, advised by William C. Dement.[9]
Career
Along with Dement, Carskadon developed the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) used to clinically determine sleepiness in sleep disordered patients, particularly by measuring daytime sleep onset latency.[10] Carskadon started her own research group at Brown University in 1985. In addition to researching sleep and circadian rhythms[11] during childhood,[12] adolescence,[13] and young adulthood,[14] Carskadon has studied issues related to daytime sleepiness.[15]
"I'm just a smalltown kid who worked hard, kept her head down, and got lucky," she protested a few years ago...
In the realm of sleep science, however, Carskadon is true royalty—a direct heir to the legacy of Nathaniel Kleitman, the field's founding ancestor. She has won just about every award the field has to offer, including one named after the founder himself. (An award has been named after Carskadon, as well.) Her research, which began when women scientists were a rarity, has helped shape the discipline over the past half-century. And her discoveries have changed millions of lives.
Carskadon has also contributed important research on school start times as it relates to sleep patterns and sleepiness in adolescence.[17] Her research in adolescent sleep/wake behavior has resulted in proposed changes in public policy.[18] This research suggests that circadian rhythms shift during adolescence and that secondary schools should have later start times.[19]
Carskadon offers a summer internship at the Bradley Sleep Lab for undergraduate college students interested in sleep research. These students, known as Dement Fellows, after William C. Dement, work in the sleep lab for the entirety of the summer and learn under Carskadon.[20] Carskadon's lab also hosts adolescents who live in the sleep lab for 14 days during the summer. The adolescents participate in summer camp-like activities while their sleep is monitored each night.[21]
Carskadon is a past president of the Sleep Research Society (1999–2000)[22] and founder of the Northeast Sleep Society (1986).[23]
Awards and honors
Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award of the American Sleep Disorders Association (1991)[24]
Outstanding Educator Award of the Sleep Research Society (2005). (The Sleep Research Society has since renamed the award the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award.)[26]
Carskadon was recognized and awarded by Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine Prize, for her outstanding lifetime contribution to the field of sleep (2020).[23]
The Association of Polysomnographic Technologists annually presents the Carskadon Award for Research Excellence to a member, "for excellence and originality of an abstract in basic or clinical sleep research."[28]
Brown University Distinguished Research Achievement Award (2023).[29]
William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award (2023), for "exceptional initiative and progress in the areas of academic research…pursuit of knowledge, a commitment to teaching, and an unceasing quest to disseminate truth, American Academy of Sleep Medicine."[30]
The V. Sagar Sethi, M.D., Mental Health Research Award (2023), "for significant contributions to basic research in the neurosciences, psychology, or pharmacology at a molecular, cellular or behavioral level."[31]
Carskadon, Mary, ed. (August 19, 2002). Adolescent Sleep Patterns: Biological, Social, and Psychological Influences. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0521642910.
Carskadon, Mary A., ed. (February 1, 2005). Pediatric and Adolescent Sleep: A Special Issue of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Psychology Press. ISBN978-0805894936.
Carskadon, Mary A.; Rechtschaffen, Allan (March 8, 2005). "Monitoring and staging human sleep"(PDF). In Kryger, Meir H.; Roth, T.; Dement, William C. (eds.). Principles and practice of sleep medicine (4thed.). Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier/Saunders. ISBN978-0-7216-0797-9.
Carskadon, Mary; Jenni, Oskar G., eds. (October 26, 2007). Child and Adolescent Sleep, An Issue of Sleep Medicine Clinics (Volume 2-3). Saunders. ISBN978-1416051244.
Carskadon, Mary, ed. (March 1, 2011). 100 Q and A's About Shift Work Sleep Disorder. Jones & Bartlett Learning. ISBN978-0763791070.
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