Early Career Researchers

Dr Aurore Perrault is a post-doctoral researcher in the Sleep and Circadian Group. Her line of research seeks to investigate non-pharmacological interventions to improve sleep quality, cognitive functioning and mental health, with a particular emphasis on the role of women’s health in sleep across the lifespan and the development of women-specific care in sleep disorders.

During her PhD at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and a previous postdoctoral fellowship at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), she used sensory stimulation (rocking bed, auditory stimulation) and psychological interventions (cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia, CBTi; psychoeducation) to assess outcomes across self-reported assessments of sleep complaints, neurophysiological (EEG) and brain imaging (fMRI) measures of sleep, cognitive performance and mental health. Interested in the heterogeneity between individuals (e.g. insomnia phenotypes) and also within individuals (e.g., health across the lifespan), she leverages data-driven machine learning approaches to delineate distinct multidimensional profiles combining sleep and non-sleep characteristics (i.e., biopsychosocial factors) on large datasets (healthy adults, insomnia).

In the group, she is currently co-designing a digital CBTi in collaboration with clinicians, consumers, and researchers and running an RCT on the effects of dCBTi on sleep and overnight emotional regulation with Dr Rick Wassing. She is the co-chair of the Sleep Early Career Researcher (ECR) Committee and the Secretary of the Woolcock NextGen Committee.