David F. Dinges, chief of the division of sleep & chronobiology and director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded the 2016 Pioneer Award from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). He received the award last month at the 2016 NASA Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshop at Galveston Island, Texas.

Dr. Dinges has conducted studies through peer-review grant funding from NSBRI (via NASA NCC9-58) since NSBRI’s inception in 1997 and has conducted additional grant-funded research for NASA during this period. His recent research for NASA includes studies of sleep, alertness and neurobehavioral responses of astronauts on the International Space Station, people living in isolated, confined, extreme space-analog environments, and laboratory experiments on biomarkers of phenotypic vulnerability to the effects of chronic inadequate sleep.