Sean Drummond

Personal profile

Biography

Dr. Drummond first became fascinated with sleep research when he volunteered as an undergraduate research assistant in the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University of Arizona under the direction of Richard Bootzin, PhD and Michael Perlis, PhD (then a graduate student). After college, he worked with Sarah Mosko, PhD at UC Irvine Medical Center investigating mother-infant co-sleeping. For graduate school, he attended the SDSU-UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology where he worked with J. Christian Gillin, MD. He completed his Pre-doctoral Internship at the Tucson VA hospital and then returned to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) as a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Gregory G. Brown PhD. He served on the UCSD Department of Psychiatry faculty from 2002-2014, and as a Staff Psychologist at the VA San Diego Healthcare System from 2005-2014. Dr. Drummond joined the Monash School of Psychological Sciences as a Professor of Clinical Neuroscience in Dec 2014. He currently also serves as the Director of the Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Research Theme within the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health.

Dr. Drummond has three main arms to his program of research: 1) cognitive neuroscience of sleep and sleep deprivation; 2) treatment of insomnia, especially in comorbid psychopathology; and 3) translational research examining the mechanistic role sleep plays in PTSD and mood disorders. With respect to cognitive neuroscience, his studies manipulate sleep deprivation in healthy adults and measure the consequent cognitive and cerebral changes through behavioral and cognitive testing, functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), and EEG. His work also includes healthy older adults and clinical populations such as obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia. He is interested in a number of cognitive performance domains, particularly decision making, attention, executive function (broadly defined) and learning/memory. Dr. Drummond's clinical research focuses on the treatment of insomnia in various contexts. His translational research examines the interaction of sleep, sleep disruption, and psychiatric symptoms. In particular, he is interested in understanding the mechanistic role sleep plays in development, maintenance, and treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and mood disorders. His research has been funded by several sources, including the National Health and Medical Research Council, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, US Department of Defense, and industry. Dr Drummond's clinical expertise lies in treating behavioral sleep disorders, such as insomnia and chronic nightmares, as well as mood disorders such as depression and bipolar.

Community Service:

Immediate Past President of the Sleep Research Society (sleepresearchsociety.org)

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Projects

2 Finished
2 Not started
5 Active

Circadian mechanisms for antidepressant medication treatment

Cain, S., Phillips, A. & Drummond, S.

1/01/20 → 31/12/22

Project: Research

Impact of Operational Sleep Disruption on PTSD-relevant Fear Learning Processes

Risbrough, V. B., Drummond, S., Wilson Rajaratnam, S. & Norman, S.

30/09/18 → 29/09/21

Project: Research

The Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group) decision making under sleep loss and circadian misalignment top-up scholarship

Boardman, J., Aidman, E. & Drummond, S.

29/03/18 → 15/03/21

Project: Research

The role of sleep disturbances in the development of trauma-related mental health disorders among paramedics

Wolkow, A. & Drummond, S.

National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

1/01/18 → 31/12/21

Project: Research

Researching Effective Sleep Treatments (Project REST): a Partner-Assisted intervention to improve adherence in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia

Drummond, S., Baucom, D. H. & Norton, P.

National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

1/01/16 → 31/08/20

Project: Research