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Early Career Network Committee 2024-2026: Sleep in the Age of Technology

Picture of Dr. Adriana Michalak

Dr. Adriana Michalak

Postdoctoral Fellow in Dream Engineering at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy. Chair & Board Representative of Early Career Network (ECN). Vice-Chair of Gender Equality Forum (GEF). More on LinkedIn.

2024-2026 Vision of the Early Career Network

We, the members of the Early Career Network (ECN), are excited to present our 2024-2026 theme, ‘Sleep in the Age of Technology’. Our goal is to explore how technological advancements can enhance sleep research and clinical practice, while also considering the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its relationship to sustainability. Stay tuned for webinars, interviews, and journal clubs on this timely topic!

Technological Innovations in Sleep

Medical-grade AI-driven examinations and wearable devices are transforming sleep medicine by enabling faster diagnosis and personalized treatments. Future advancements, such as integrating AI with home-based monitoring systems, could further revolutionize sleep research and longitudinal health data acquisition, providing better insights into chronic conditions, lifestyle factors, and long-term health trends.

Alongside this, the rise of non-medical apps and devices, like sleep trackers, raises questions about their effectiveness and potential risks, such as orthosomnia—an unhealthy fixation on perfecting sleep data that can actually worsen sleep quality. Which commercial tools are genuinely effective, and which are simply clever marketing tactics designed to capitalize on customer data?

A dialogue between technology experts, the scientific community, clinicians and consumers is essential to enhance societal technological literacy. We look forward to addressing the benefits and pitfalls of current technological advancements in clinical and non-clinical sleep research during our ‘Sleep in the Age of Technology’ webinar series.

Let’s Keep Together for a Sustainable Future

Building on the efforts of the ECN Committee 2022-2024, we will continue to focus on sustainability, particularly within the context of AI. Further advancements in AI and sleep research requires a well-planned approach, rather than an over-reliance on increasingly larger models, that come with a significant environmental footprint, including high energy consumption and water usage for cooling systems. Therefore, if you are an AI expert in sleep research, we encourage you to report the CO₂ impact and energy consumption associated with training new models to help acknowledge and mitigate their environmental costs.

Our Network for Early Career Sleep Researchers and Clinicians

In celebration of the ECN’s 11th anniversary, we continue to strengthen our peer network of early-career sleep researchers and clinicians, believing that collaboration and support can lead to greater success and advancement within the field.

We aim to engage with you through our social media channels to get to know you better! Our goal is to make the ECN LinkedIn group along with our LinkedIn and BlueSky profiles a friendly space for networking, sharing ideas, and celebrating our shared passion for sleep research.

Sleep in the Age of Technology

Without further ado, we are activating our neural networks to deliver great content related to Sleep in the Age of Technology, optimized for technological awareness and ethical considerations, engineered with sustainability at its core—all powered by the best speakers!#

With best wishes,
Adriana, Anna, Lieve, Laura, Matias, Michaela & Monisha, Your Early Career Network Committee 2024-2026

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