ICOSS Members

Professor , MD PhD FAAN (), is currently Medical Director of the Terveystalo Helsinki Sleep Clinic, and Principal Investigator of Sleep Medicine at Institute of Clinical Medicine, Clinicum, University of Helsinki, Finland. He is a neurologist with special competence in sleep medicine and traffic medicine. He obtained his medical degree in 1975 and his Diplome d’Université de Docteur en Medecine (DrMed) in Montpellier, France in 1977. He received his PhD in 1982 (epidemiology of sleep disorders) in Helsinki, Finland. He has worked as a postdoc researcher at Stanford University, USA in 1985-86 and as a visiting professor in Bologna, Italy in 1987. His main research interests in sleep medicine have been sleep apnea, excessive daytime sleepiness and fatigue, narcolepsy, insomnia. He has published more than 370 original articles in peer reviewed Journals in addition to writing many book Chapters and editing several books. His Hirsch factor (H-factor) is 65 in ISI Web of Sciences, 71 in Scopus and 92 in Google Scholar. He has served in the Editorial Boards and as Assistant Editor in Sleep, Journal of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine. He has had many International positions in different research societies including Coordinating Secretary of the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies (WFSRS), Vice-President of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) and Founding member and President of the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM). He initiated the ICOSS Collaboration in March 2020.

Dr. , PhD (), is a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Medicine, Medicum, and a visiting researcher at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare. She received her PhD at the University of Helsinki in Biology at 2016. Her h-index is 24 (Google Scholar) with more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in esteemed scientific journals, most as first author. Separately from scientific articles she has written book chapters, review articles in Finnish in medical journals and National Institute Reports. Her research focuses on how individual circadian rhythm profile (chronotype) and circadian misalignment associate with behavior, genetic factors, sleep, wellbeing and mental and somatic health across life span from early childhood to old age. Merikanto has been involved in the ICOSS project as a core group member in collecting the Finnish survey data, designing the second ICOSS survey and coordinating the international data collection.

Professor , MD PhD (), is a professor in the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen and Director of the Norwegian Competence Center for Sleep Disorders at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway. He is a certified somnologist (European Sleep Research Society) and specialist in general practice. Bjorvatn received his PhD in basic sleep research (Serotonin and the sleep/wake cycle) in 1995. His main research interests are in circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders and insomnia. Bjorvatn has authored more than 230 original peer-reviewed articles, several review papers, and many chapters in English textbooks (e.g., chapters on circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders in the official European Sleep Medicine Textbook). Bjorvatn has written four books on sleep-related topics in Norwegian (one self-help book on insomnia and one self-help book on how to cope with night work and irregular working hours, and two textbooks on sleep medicine) and more than 300 publications in Norwegian. His h-index is 62 (Research Gate). He is working clinically with patients one day per week at Bergen Sleep Disorders Center, which he founded in 1996.

Professor , MD PhD (), is a professor of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at University Health Network, University of Toronto.  She is the ResMed Research Chair of Anesthesia, and Sleep Medicine. She is a co-founder and past president of the Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine.  She is an editor in Anesthesia and Analgesia and Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. In total, she has 326 publications with a H index of 76 and almost 20,000 citations.  Her research work has been recognized through multiple awards such as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada’s McLaughlin-Gallie Visiting Professorship, the Research Recognition Award from the Canadian Anesthesiologist’s Society; the Distinguished Services Award from the Society For Ambulatory Anesthesia, and Life-time Achievement Award by the Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine. To celebrate 2017 World Anesthesia Day, her work "High STOP-Bang score indicates a high probability of sleep apnea" () was chosen to be the Top 25 Most Important Articles in the history of Anesthesia by British Journal of Anaesthesia.

Professor , PhD (), graduated from physics (1986), human biology (1991), and physiology (1995) at the University Marburg, Germany. In 2006 he moved to Berlin where he is the director of research of the Interdisciplinary Sleep Medicine Center at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany). In 2001, he received the Bial award for Clinical Medicine in Portugal, in 2008 the Bill Gruen Award for Innovations in Sleep Research by the American Sleep Research Society, and in 2014 the distinguished research award by the Chinese Sleep Research Society. He was elected as IEEE EMB distinguished lecturer for 2021-2023. Currently he is president of the German Sleep Society and Adcom member of IEEE EMBS. He was IEEE EMBC 2019 conference chair, co-chair of earlier EMBS conferences, and World Sleep Society in 2005 in Berlin. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Sleep and Breathing, and editorial board member of several journals in the field of sleep research and biomedical engineering. He has published 400 journal papers (Pubmed), 80 book chapters, and edited several books. His research interests are sleep medicine, biomedical signals, wearables for sleep recording, the cardiovascular and the neural system related to the sleep-wake regulation, and the pathophysiology of sleep disordered breathing.

Brigitte Holzinger, PhD (), born in Vienna, Austria is a psychologist (Univ. of Vienna, Research for PhD. Thesis at Stanford University with Stephen LaBerge), psychotherapist for Integrative Gestalt, supervisor and clinical and health psychologist, and sleep and dream researcher, (University)teacher and writer. Her main interest is lucid dreaming, dreaming, sleep and sleep research. 1989, she founded the Institute for Consciousness and Dream Research () and has organized international and interdisciplinary conferences, such as “DREAMING & CONSCIOUSNESS” in 1998 and REM50 in 2003. She is a founding member of the ASRA (Austrian Sleep Research Association, 1991). She was accredited as Somnologist by ESRS (European Sleep Research Society) in 2013 and is a member of the EIN (the European Insomnia Network) and the European Academy for Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia (CBT-I). She applied and evaluated lucid dreaming as a therapeutic technique for nightmares and founded “Sleep Coaching” – a non pharmacological approach for overcoming Sleep Problems and Sleep Disorders with her colleague, Gerhard Klösch (). Since 2011 she organizes annual press conferences for the World Sleep Day in the name of the Austrian Sleep Research Society (ASRA). Since 2015, “Sleep Coaching” also is a postgraduate 3-semester course at the Medical University, Vienna, founded and directed by Brigitte Holzinger ().

Professor , PhD (), is currently full Professor at University of Rome Sapienza. He is a psychologist with competence in basic and clinical sleep research. He obtained his psychological degree in 1981 and his PhD in 1989 (experimental psychology) in Rome, Italy. His main research interests have been sleep onset, sleep regulation, dreaming, sleep EEG analysis, sleepiness, fatigue, and insomnia. He has published more than 200 original articles in peer reviewed Journals in addition to writing many book Chapters. His Hirsch factor (H-factor) is 41 in ISI Web of Sciences, 44 in Scopus and 55 in Google Scholar. He serves in the Editorial Boards and as Associate Editor in Journal of Sleep Research, Brain Sciences (Section Editor-in-Chief Behavioral Neuroscience), Frontiers (Associated Editor in Sleep Disorders), Nature and Science of Sleep. He is secretary of the Italian national society of Sleep Medicine (Associazione Italiana di Medicina del Sonno -AIMS-) and member of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS).

Professor , MD PhD (), is a professor of Neurology and Physiology, and Head of the clinical and research activity of the sleep laboratory at the University of Montpellier, France, coordinator of the French National Reference Network for Orphan Diseases (Narcolepsy, Hypersomnia, Kleine-Levin Syndrome) and director of one research group in the Institute of Neuroscience INSERM, Montpellier. He is an author or coauthor of more than 400 papers published in international and national peer-reviewed journals, several book chapters, and he also edited three French book related to sleep medicine.

Professor is currently the Chairman and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (). He is also the Director of the Li Chiu Kong Family Sleep Assessment Unit of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Wing has diverse research interest in sleep and circadian medicine, psychiatric disorders, neuropsychiatry, and transcultural psychopharmacology. He has active contribution to the scientific communities, including his leadership role in the Hong Kong Society of Sleep Medicine (ex-President, HKSSM) and Asian Sleep Society of Sleep Medicine (ASSM, Vice-president of Education). He was also involved in the World Association of Sleep Medicine (Scientific Committee, 2011, 2013 and 2015) and World Sleep 2017 and 2019 (Scientific Committee). He is currently serving at 6 editorial boards including his role as Associate Editor in the journal ‘Behavioral Sleep Medicine’ and Deputy Editor in ‘Sleep Medicine Research’.

, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Mississippi State University where he also directs the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program.  He received his bachelor’s in Psychology and Computer Applications from the University of Notre Dame in 2007 and received his master’s and doctorate in Psychology (Clinical) at West Virginia University in 2009 and 2012, respectively.  He completed a clinical psychology internship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX in 2012 before joining the faculty at Mississippi State University, where he has been since 2012.  Dr. Nadorff’s research is focused on sleep, suicide, and aging, with a particular focus on insomnia and nightmares.  He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals such as SLEEP, Sleep Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, and Behavioral Sleep Medicine.  His work has received extramural grant support from the NIH, CDC, and SAMHSA in the U.S.

, PhD (), currently works as a senior researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University, where he heads a team with three doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher. His group investigates the role of sleep disturbances in developing and progressing common diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. CB has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed articles. His h-index is 49 (Google Scholar). He has also released a popular scientific book about sleep, translated to Swedish, German, Japanese, and Russian.

Kentaro Matsui, MD PhD (), is a medical director in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Center Hospital, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry. He is a board certified physician of the Japanese Society of Sleep Research and a board certified psychiatrist of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology. He obtained his medical degree in 2009 and received his PhD in 2016 (epidemiology of sleep disorders) in Tokyo, Japan. His main research interests are sleepiness, parasomnias, insomnia, circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders and schizophrenia. He has authored 25 original peer-reviewed articles in English, and more than 90 publications in Japanese. His h-index is 5 (Google Scholar).

Maria Korman, PhD (), is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ariel University, Israel. She began studying biology, and during her M.Sc and Ph.D at the Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, she became interested in human neuroplasticity, sleep and memory. Later she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Functional Neuroimaging Unit at Montreal University, where she researched the role of day-time and night-time sleep in learning and memory in the elderly. Maria has authored more than 40 original peer-reviewed articles and proceedings in journals such as Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Sleep and Computers in Human Behaviour (citation index >1650, h-index 14). Currently, Maria directs and manages research at her Temporal Organization of Behaviour laboratory (TO-Be lab), focusing on the exploration of “time factors” in human sleep, cognition and wellbeing in controlled laboratory-based, as well as, in ecological settings. The lab develops and evaluates novel non-drug neuromodulatory intervention protocols and assistive technologies, such as vibratory stimulation and light therapy, to optimize cognitive, physical and psychological wellbeing via improved circadian physiology, optimal arousal levels, and better alignment of evening-oriented individuals with social schedules in general and clinical populations (e.g., ADHD). Maria also conducts educational programs emphasizing the biomedical relevance and the cross-disciplinary nature of circadian rhythms and sleep.