Everyone Makes a Mark

If you're taking part in Dr. Colleen Carney's research, sleeping is part of the job description.

She's looking at the links between insomnia and depression, and how teaching someone how to get a good night's sleep can help treat that depression. In Ryerson's new Sleep and Depression Lab, an Ontario first, Colleen and her graduate students are using cognitive behavioural therapy, a non-medicinal treatment, to help patients get some shut-eye.

Down the road, it could mean patients will need fewer drugs and therapy sessions, saving the health system millions of dollars.

Colleen is well known for her work. After completing her PhD at Louisiana State University, she took a faculty position at Duke University. Colleen then decided to make her way to Ryerson because of the big names, new labs and cutting-edge research.

Even cooler was that she brought along $1-million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the premier medical research agency in the U.S.

Colleen is part of a psychology department that is entrenching Ryerson as the place to be for research and training. Leading researchers in fields from anxiety treatment to music cognition are making their mark at Ryerson.

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