The University of Arizona Sleep and Development Lab studies environmental and behavioral factors affecting sleep and circadian health in children and adolescents, including light exposure, screen media use, and melatonin supplements.
We utilize measures of behavior (actigraphy, cognitive tests, sleep and media diaries) and physiology (salivary melatonin, pupillometry) to answer fundamental questions about children’s circadian physiology, as well as to develop and test interventions to improve young children’s sleep and circadian health.
Lab Members
Lauren E. Hartstein, PhD
Lab Director
laurenhartstein@arizona.edu
Dr. Hartstein is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Dr. Hartstein completed her B.A. in Psychology at Vassar College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Developmental Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received training in the non-visual impacts of the lighting environment at the Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in child sleep and circadian physiology with Dr. Monique LeBourgeois at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests are focused on questions of how the modern built environment impacts children’s sleep and circadian rhythms across development.