This year’s “Robert A Pritzker Visiting Scientist-Inventor-Engineer In Residence”––the 12th in Parker’s history––was Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a professor in the Department of Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the University of Chicago. She is the director of the Research Laboratory on Sleep, Chronobiology and Neuroendocrinology. In the fall, Van Cauter visited Parker, participating in discussions and hosting a Morning Ex. On Monday, February 4, she returned to Parker.

Throughout the day, Van Cauter spoke to a few Upper School classes, including Biology and Psychology classes, gave a Morning Ex to the Lower School, and gave a lecture on the same evening in the Heller Auditorium.

“Sleep is not taught in school normally—this is very special for Parker,” Van Cauter said.

Van Cauter’s lecture, titled “Sleep as a Pillar of Health and Wellness,” addressed issues including insufficient sleep, consequences of poor sleep, and link between sleep and diseases such as diabetes and cancer. The lecture was a little over one hour in length, and was free and open to the public.

“I want to really focus the talk on two other aspects: one is how insufficient sleep, which is a novel behavior in the 21st century, is promoting weight gain and obesity,” Van Cauter said. “It is now quite well accepted that the epidemic of obesity in the industrialized world is partly related to insufficient sleep.”

In the lecture, Van Cauter spoke about a variety of topics, including the link of sleep to health and to lives of students at Parker

“I’m going to even review with them the results of a survey taken here about the amount of sleep and extracurricular activities and so on,” Van Cauter said, “and try to explain that preserving sleep duration and quality is an important ingredient of being a successful student.”

As seen in the results of the survey, 53.1% of Parker students report sleeping less than eight hours on a school night.

“Now there are so many things that are at our fingertips to remain active and awake and sleep as little as possible, and many people are taking advantage of that and curtailing their time in bed,” Van Cauter said in the lecture.

Van Cauter’s lecture was enjoyed by the students who attended. “I thought that her presentation was extremely interesting,” sophomore and lecture attendee Rohan Dhingra said.

“You have to pay attention to sleep in the same way that you pay attention to food and the same way you try to be physically active,” Van Cauter said. “It’s an essential ingredient of a healthy lifestyle.”

“At first, her correlation between sleep deprivation, obesity, and diabetes sounded insane,” Dhingra said. “However, once she showed the data that had been collected, I was shocked to see the causation of this claim and how sleep deprivation was an underlying issue in our society that is just becoming more prevalent.”

Not only did Van Cauter’s visit have an impact on students, it also had an impact on faculty.

“As faculty, it’s made us think more about how much homework we give, and having that sort of just work-sleep-life balance,” Upper School Science teacher Bridget Lesinski said.

“She was very available to us in terms of talking in advance to figure out what her conversation should and could be about, which was great,” Upper School Science teacher Kara Schupp said.

Van Cauter spoke to every Advanced Biology student during an “in-school field trip,” during C period on Monday, and during D period she spoke with all of the Advanced Topics in Biology students. Her presentation included a few slides and time for a question-and-answer period.

“Typically when the visiting scientist comes, they come for a full day in the fall and a full day in the spring, and try to balance out visits to both the Lower School students and Upper School students,” Schupp said. “So depending on the expertise and field of that visiting scientist, sometimes certain classes lend themselves more to their field or area of expertise.”

In preparation for Van Cauter’s visit, the students watched a documentary made by National Geographic called “Sleepless in America,” which featured Van Cauter.

“The students got a chance to see her, hear her talk and reference some of the science and the work that she did,” Schupp said. “Watching that video gave them a bit more flavor for the type of work she does and that work in the broader scope of this national crisis that people are starting to become aware of,” Schupp said. “So the students then, after having watched it, were able to generate questions.”

Van Cauter also spoke with the Upper School Psychology class, whose students prepared in a similar way. “In the second-semester class we got to meet with her again, so the students prepared by reading about what sleep is and its purpose, and we actually did watch the documentary Sleepless in America, which she comes up in a lot,” Lesinski said.

“So my last word will say, let’s sleep better for health, safety, wellbeing and for your students’ academic success,” Van Cauter said at the end of her lecture.