Over June 8-11, 2025, Project Sleep attended SLEEP 2025 in Seattle, WA. SLEEP 2025 is the 39th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC (APSS). The annual SLEEP meeting is dedicated to clinical sleep medicine, sleep and circadian research, and sleep health.
Project Sleep was honored to share our work and research via multiple sessions featuring Project Sleep leadership and advocates. We also had the opportunity to host a booth with resources, materials, and goodies to share!
Since June 2023, Project Sleep has been gathering insights on how identity and sleep health are intertwined for LGBTQ+ members of our community via our LGBTQ+ Sleep Survey. In February 2025, Project Sleep sought out additional responses to the survey to better understand how a shifting political landscape affects sleep, with the goal of submitting the research insights to a major sleep conference.
This important research was accepted to SLEEP 2025 as the poster, “Sleeping while Queer: Impacts of sexual and gender identity-related concerns on sleep health in the LGBTQ+ community before and after the 2025 US presidential inauguration.” Huge congrats and thank you to Project Sleep Programs Manager Lauren Oglesby, MPH and Project Sleep Board member Stephanie Manuli, MPH, who presented the poster on Tuesday of the meeting.
On Monday, June 9, Project Sleep President & CEO Julie Flygare, JD was featured in the SRS Trainee Networking Development Suite, Out of the Bubble: Collaborating With The World Outside of Academia alongside Massimiliano de Zambotti, PhD, and Rachel Markwald, PhD.
Rising Voices speaker, Matt Horsnell, BS, was also featured in And Now What? Holistic Treatment of Narcolepsy and Idiopathic Hypersomnia at Time of Diagnosis with Lindsay Jesteadt, PhD, Lindsay McCullough, MD, and Jennifer Mundt, PhD, DBSM.
On Tuesday of the SLEEP meeting, Rising Voices Speaker Matt Horsnell, BS, spoke again in Legal Issues and the Practice of Sleep Medicine: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, & Emerging Technologies with Ramesh Sachdeva, MD, PhD, Cathy Goldstein, MD, Seema Khosla, MD, Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, Margarita Oks, MD, and Muhammad Adeel Rishi, MBBS.
Project Sleep’s Sleep Apnea Program Manager, Emma Cooksey, LLB presented the poster Impact of Obstructive Sleep Apnea on Daily Life by Disease Severity Level: Analysis from the SHINE Survey and The SHINE Survey: Uncovering Gender Differences in Psychosocial Burden of Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Cooksey was also featured in a panel discussion, The Role of Alternative Treatments in the Sleep Center of the Future.
To finish out the day, Project Sleep President & CEO, Julie Flygare, JD, presented on brain fog during Cognitive Symptoms in Narcolepsy and Idiopathic Hypersomnia: Neurobiology, Functional Impact, and Clinical Research alongside Kiran Maski, MD, Chris Cano, MD, and Lucie Barateau, MD, PhD.
A huge thank you to all of the amazing community members and patient advocates that traveled far and wide to support Project Sleep and its mission. Thank you AASM and Sleep Research Society for encouraging clinicians and researchers to include patient voices and patient advocacy organizations in your major sleep meeting!
The #BeyondSleepy Conference hosted by the Hypersomnia Foundation is an event dedicated to people with idiopathic hypersomnia, narcolepsy, and Kleine-Levin syndrome, as well as their supporters. This conference happens annually leading up to the SLEEP meeting. Project Sleep was also represented via a booth and featured speakers.
On Saturday, June 7, Rising Voices speaker Matt Horsnell and Project Sleep’s Sleep Helpline Manager Heather Lill presented Relationships: Challenges in Relation to Sleep Disorders. On Sunday, June 8, Rising Voices speaker, Haley Wall presented Role of Patient Advocacy in Advancing IH Awareness and later in the day, Heather and Haley spoke on the Relationships and Sleep Disorders Panel.
SLEEP is the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC (APSS). The APSS is a joint venture of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS).
The SLEEP meeting provides evidence-based education to advance the science and clinical practice of sleep medicine. It also disseminates cutting-edge sleep and circadian research, promotes the translation of basic science into clinical practice, and fosters the future of the field by providing career development opportunities at all levels. Thousands of individuals from all around the world, many of whom are pioneering leaders in the field, attend the conference.
