Colin Espie


Professor Colin Espie PhD, DSc, FRSM, FBPsS is a Scottish professor of Sleep Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Somerville College. He is closely involved with the development of the Sleep & Circadian Neuroscience Institute. His particular areas of research expertise are in the assessment and treatment of sleep disorders, most particularly the management of insomnia using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and in studies on the aetiology and pathophysiology of insomnia.

Biography

Educated at the University of Glasgow with a PHD and DSc on sleep disorders, Professor Espie was the founding Director of the University of Glasgow Sleep Centre from 1995 - 2012. He holds and has held adjunct or visiting professorial appointments at the Universities of Sydney, Rome, Laval and Rochester.
Professor Espie co-founded Big Health, the behavioral medicine company, with entrepreneur Peter Hames. The first programme, Sleepio is an online CBT-based sleep improvement program, launched in 2010 with the intention "to disseminate evidence based CBT" and make "CBT for insomnia accessible to the wider population for the first time". The programme has been validated in a randomised placebo-controlled trial and has since featured in other research conducted and published by Professor Espie and colleagues.
Professor Espie has published around 200 scientific papers and has written and edited several books including Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders with Dr Charles M. Morin, Director of the Centre on Sleep Disorders at Laval University in 2012.

Other appointments

Professor Espie is an Emeritus Professor in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He is also immediate past Chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Sleep Research Society and serves on its Sleep Medicine and Sleep Education committees.
He is also Membership Chair of the World Sleep Federation, Deputy Editor for the Journal of Sleep Research, the official journal of the ESRS and Deputy Editor of SLEEP, the official journal of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Behavioral Sleep Medicine.

Selected recent publications