- Professor and Director
Biography
Additional Info
Hans Van Dongen, a nationally and internationally recognized sleep scientist, is Director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center.
Dr. Van Dongen is known for his research on sleep deprivation and cognitive performance. His research includes laboratory, field and simulator studies, as well as mathematical modeling of sleep and performance. He has been awarded funding by the NIH, NASA, US Navy, US Army, US Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Regional Airline Association, and various industry partners.
Dr. Van Dongen has a track record of experimental and theoretical contributions to sleep research. His research portfolio is broad, including two particular focus areas in which he is recognized as a leader. The first involves inter-individual differences in cognitive impairment resulting from sleep deprivation, which he has shown to constitute a human phenotype. The second is mathematical prediction of performance impairment due to fatigue, for which he has made several seminal contributions.
Dr. Van Dongen holds a Master’s degree in astrophysics and a PhD degree in chronobiology and sleep from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He has been awarded two patents related to alertness monitoring and prediction. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and has mentored many undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Van Dongen is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.