Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series—This presentation will discuss current research on sleep and menopause health issues with discussion on the interactions between sleep, hot flashes and cognitive function in menopause.

Agnès Lacreuse, Associate Professor of Psychology, UMass Amherst
Agnès Lacreuse’s research focuses on the influences of sex hormones on cognitive function, particularly in the context of aging. Her studies use nonhuman primate models to determine whether estrogen and androgen replacement are desirable interventions to reduce cognitive aging.  

Lynnette Leidy Sievert, Professor of Anthropology, UMass Amherst
Lynnette Leidy Sievert is a biological anthropologist whose research has focused on age at menopause and symptom experience at midlife.  She has studied the prevalence and determinants of hot flashes in 6 countries to better understand similarities and differences in symptoms across cultures.       

Susan E. Appt, Associate Professor, Pathology-Comparative Medicine Wake Forest School of Medicine
Susan Appt’s research interests focus on using nonhuman primates to better understand the influence diet and reproductive hormones on risk factors for chronic diseases common in postmenopausal women. Current projects include the characterization of the nonhuman primate model of perimenopause, studies of the effects of hormonal changes across the perimenopausal transition on risk factors for cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and bone loss, and the effect of obesity on ovarian function.

Jessica A. Mong, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Jessica A. Mong’s primary research focus is the study of mechanisms underlying the estrogenic control of sleep and arousal systems.  In a rodent model, her research group uses a multidisciplinary approach that combines behavioral, cellular, molecular and functional neuroanatomical techniques.  An understanding of how changes in ovarian hormone levels affect sleep is particularly relevant to peri- and postmenopausal women who report disturbances in their sleep patterns.

This lecture is sponsored by the Center for Research on Families’ Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series. The Center for Research on Families (CRF) is an endowed interdisciplinary research center in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and College of Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series brings internationally recognized speakers with expertise in family research to campus each year. The lecture series began in 1999 through an endowment established in memory of Tay Gavin Erickson.