Monika Haack PhD

Dr. Monika Haack is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and a translational scientist in the area of sleep and pain at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Before coming to Boston, she completed her PhD work at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich Germany, investigating the role of deep sleep on the acute inflammatory response in humans. The goal of her current research program is to expand our understanding of factors and mechanisms through which sleep disturbances increase the risk of developing a wide range of diseases involving immunopathology and pain. Her team is investigating mechanistic pathways by using complex experimental models of human sleep deficiency that mimic sleep patterns common in the general population and also in many medical conditions, for example sleep problems in chronic pain conditions. Her team is also investigating the sleep-immune relationship in real-world conditions, such as insomnia disorder and Long COVID. Her recent research highlights sex differences in the inflammatory and pain responses to sleep disturbances. Dr. Haack is a Preceptor of the Sleep, Circadian, and Respiratory Neurobiology T32 program in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has a strong commitment to mentorship of students and research fellows joining her research program. She is a follower of Harvard Medical School’s Research Rigor, Reproducibility, and Responsibility Initiative, and provides training in rigorous experimental design, methodology, transparency in data management and storage, statistical analysis, interpretation, and reporting of findings to all of her students first-hand.