Nobel Conference 60 - Robert Stickgold

"Sleep, Memory, and Dreams: Pulling It All Together"

Robert Stickgold, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

While many of us go to great lengths to stretch the boundaries of our waking hours in an attempt to do
and accomplish more, Robert Stickgold has spent his scientific career illuminating all that we accomplish
while we sleep. Far from being an idle waste of time, Stickgold’s research shows that sleep, especially
that which includes dreaming, may actually be the most productive time in our “day.”
Trained as a biochemist, first at Harvard University and then at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
Stickgold’s scientific pursuits span disciplinary boundaries from biochemistry and neuroscience to
consciousness, cognition, and clinical psychology. The work that has emerged from his sleep laboratory
has advanced our understanding of the human condition from molecules to mental functioning.

Robert Stickgold is the Harvard University Professor of Psychiatry, and founder and Director of the Center for Sleep and
Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He received a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.