Donn Posner, PhD, certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist, is an adjunct clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is working as a clinical/research psychologist at the Palo Alto VA. Prior to his role at the VA, he spent 25 years serving as the director of clinical behavioral medicine for Rhode Island and Miriam hospitals and was also the director of behavioral sleep medicine for the Sleep Disorders Center of Lifespan Hospitals.

For 20 of those years, Dr. Posner served as the primary supervisor for a rotation of the behavioral medicine track of the clinical psychology internship at Brown. He also mentored post-doctoral fellows and lectured on behavioral sleep medicine and anxiety disorders to interns, fellows, and residents in internal medicine and psychiatry. In addition, he was a consultant for the Veteran’s Administration roll out of CBT-I and trained VA clinicians across the country in the implementation of this treatment.

Dr. Posner is one of the authors of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia: A Session-by-Session Guide (New York: Springer/Verlag). The book is intended for clinical trainees, and non-insomnia sleep specialists, as well as more experienced clinicians from outside the sleep medicine field, who wish to learn how to provide empirically validated cognitive behavioral treatments for insomnia (CBT-I).

He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and became one of the first certified behavioral sleep medicine specialists recognized by that group.

Michael L. Perlis, PhD is internationally known for his work in the area of Behavioral Sleep Medicine (BSM). He is a coauthor of the first text book in this field and he is the senior author of a published CBT-I treatment manual and a larger text summarizing all BSM treatments. His research includes neurocognitive phenomena in insomnia, the cognitive and/or behavior effects of sedative hypnotics and placebos, the development of alternative treatment approaches for insomnia, and sleep in depression. His work has been, and continues to be, funded by the National Institutes of Health and he has published more than 100 articles and chapters on the sleep research related topics.

In addition to his academic endeavors, he has served on the editorial boards of Sleep, the Journal of Sleep Research, the journal of Sleep Medicine Research and the journal of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Dr. Perlis has also served as a member, or chair, of several committees and task forces of the Sleep Research Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and he was a founding member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and served as the society's first president (2010-2011).

Jason Ellis, PhD is a Professor of Sleep Science and Director of the Northumbria Centre for Sleep Research in the United Kingdom. He splits his time between his basic research interests: the pathophysiology of sleep disorders (Insomnia, Restless Legs  Syndrome, and Circadian Rhythm Disorders), the natural history of Insomnia, and his applied work on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). Within the latter framework he examines the impact of novel adjunct therapies, the influence of social factors on adherence, and the effective delivery of CBT-I in complex cases. He has worked within the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, delivering CBT-I to individuals with a range of physical and psychological conditions and serves on the editorial board of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. He is a serious advocate of public engagement and professional education with regard to behavioral sleep medicine and regularly trains CBT-I to clinicians and primary care physicians in the United Kingdom.