The Sleep Research Program for Advancing Careers (SOAR) is a research training program designed to support early career sleep and circadian investigators through a structured and mentored grant writing curriculum. Five SOAR Fellows were selected through a competitive application process and will work with a team of SOAR Faculty to develop their first National Institutes of Health career development grant application. We are pleased to introduce the AASM Foundation 2025-2026 SOAR Fellows.
Nathan Nowalk
Dr. Nathan Nowalk is a postdoctoral research fellow in Sleep Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed training in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the University of Chicago, where he also earned a Master of Science in Public Health Sciences and received T32 fellowship support. His recent work examines cardiometabolic outcomes of hypoglossal nerve stimulation for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Upon completing this work and the SOAR program, he plans to submit an NIH K23 application to study how therapeutic interventions can improve outcomes in patients with OSA.
Courtney Bolstad
Dr. Courtney Bolstad is a clinical geropsychologist and Advanced Fellow in Geriatrics at the Birmingham/Atlanta Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the Birmingham VA Health Care System. Dr. Bolstad’s research aims to develop, evaluate, and disseminate cognitive behavioral interventions for the treatment and management of sleep disorders. Her current work is focused on REM parasomnias, including the dissemination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Nightmares (CBT-N) and the development of an adjunctive behavioral intervention for individuals with REM sleep behavior disorder.
Dominique Tanner
Dr. Dominique Tanner has a multidisciplinary background with a research focus on epilepsy. At NYU Grossman School of Medicine, her postdoctoral work integrated Fitbit data with patient reports to forecast seizures, examine physiological-neural signals, and assess using wearable devices for epilepsy management. Dr. Tanner is currently training in sleep medicine and Alzheimer’s disease research at NYU Langone Health. Her work explores the intersection of Alzheimer’s pathology, epilepsy, cognition, and socio-structural factors that impact sleep outcomes, particularly in African American/Black populations. By leveraging wearable sleep metrics and advanced analytic approaches, Dr. Tanner aims to broaden the understanding of how sleep disturbances contribute to neurodegeneration and health disparities.
Monique Balthazar
Dr. Monique S. Balthazar is a triple board-certified nurse practitioner and Assistant Professor at Penn State University. With dual doctoral degrees (DNP/PhD) and NIH-funded training, her research bridges clinical practice and translational science to explore the socioenvironmental and biobehavioral determinants of sleep and brain health. Her work focuses on Alzheimer’s disease risk, leveraging biomarkers, actigraphy, and ecological assessments. Dr. Balthazar’s interdisciplinary approach integrates community-engaged research, advanced analytics, and leadership in health equity, aiming to develop precision medicine interventions that improve cognitive outcomes in aging populations.
Jolynn Jones
Dr. Jolynn Jones is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Rochester, studying insomnia in conjunction with suicide prevention. Previously, she studied the brain patterns of individuals with suicidality and sleep disturbance during the first two hours of their sleep period. Now, she is particularly interested in understanding how sleep disturbance influences an individual’s ability to regulate emotion and what the neural emotion regulation process looks like for those with suicidality.
