Q&A with Poppy Gardiner
Published July 24, 2024, by Judith Van Dongen
As a young girl growing up in the United Kingdom, Poppy Gardiner was “that annoying child that always asked ‘why.’” Her natural curiosity and love of people piqued her interest in psychology, which she started studying at the early age of 16. This ultimately led her to pursue a career in research. Since early 2023 Gardiner has been at WSU, where she works as a postdoctoral research associate in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine’s Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology and the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center.
Tell us more about the type of research you do.
I study sleep disturbances like insomnia, sleep apnea and other sleep disorders and sleep complaints, with a focus on clinical populations. Back in the U.K., I worked with people with severe mental illness. Here at WSU I’ve been working with people with brain injuries and opioid addiction, and I’m about to start working with people with ALS. I love talking to people and hearing their stories. I’m the only person in our lab who is a qualitative researcher, so anything like that falls to me. I feel very lucky that I get to do that.
What’s your educational background?
I have a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a master of science degree in clinical psychology and mental health, both from the University of Sussex in the U.K. I also have a PhD in psychology from Loughborough University in the U.K. For my PhD project, I conducted a research study that looked at the use of daytime physical activity to improve nighttime sleep quality in inpatients with severe mental illness in a psychiatric hospital.
At what point in your life did you know you wanted to be a researcher?
After finishing my master’s degree, I went on a two-month psychology volunteer program in Sri Lanka, where I worked in different settings and with different populations. When I came home I started looking for positions that involved working with clinical populations and got a few job offers. However, none of them sat right with me, because they were 9-to-5 jobs that involved carrying people through their day without thinking much about why they were there or how to help. That’s when I began considering doing a PhD and pursuing research, because I wanted to work out why things happen and how we can make it better, which you can really only do with research.
How did you end up at WSU?
As a PhD student, I was lucky enough to meet WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center director Hans Van Dongen at a conference in Rome, Italy, in 2022. We discovered overlap in what each of us did and wanted to do. There were first steps toward a clinical presence in his lab at the time, and clinical research is what I do. So I came over for a visit, loved it and started working here after handing in my dissertation in early 2023. After graduating in August 2023, I officially became a postdoc.
What are some projects you are working on currently?
I’m currently working with inpatients with traumatic brain injury or stroke at Providence St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Medical Center for a study aimed at helping them sleep better. It’s well known that people don’t sleep well in hospitals. For people with brain injuries, sleep is really important to help the brain heal and help them recover and be engaged with their rehabilitation. The research on what types of sleep disturbances these inpatients experience is quite limited, so I get to interview them, hear their story and find out what issues they are having and how those could be improved.
Another project I’m involved in is a study led by Drs. Marian Wilson in the College of Nursing and Matt Layton in the College of Medicine. It looks at the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help people who are on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder decrease their methadone dose and manage their withdrawal symptoms. A follow-up to a smaller pilot study done a few years ago, this study adds some sleep measures and includes more participants. In addition to helping to run the study’s day-to-day operations, I also have a separate subproject that involves interviewing the study participants to find out how they got to where they are now. This helps us learn how someone goes from being a healthy member of the population to being dependent on opioids and now methadone.
I also recently received a Gleason Institute for Neuroscience seed grant for a yearlong study on sleep disturbances in people who are caregivers to those with ALS. Research suggests that ALS caregivers may have the greatest burden of all neurodegenerative diseases. At the same time, they are very understudied in terms of how their quality of life, mood and family functioning may be influenced by poor sleep quality and sleep disturbances. We’ll be recruiting participants through the Gleason Institute’s Adaptive Technology Center, which hosts a support group for people with ALS and their caregivers, many of whom are interested in participating in research.
What do you hope to achieve through your research?
My ultimate goal is to help people in hospital settings sleep better. Anyone who has stayed at a hospital knows that you get checked on a lot at night. Nurses come in to check your vitals and administer medications. All of these things disrupt your sleep and prolong your recovery. We recently submitted a grant proposal to study whether use of remote monitoring tools could help improve sleep quality in hospital patients. Fingers crossed that we will get it, which we will find out later this year.
How has working for WSU helped to advance your career as a researcher?
Since coming here I’ve gained significant grant writing experience, had opportunities to mentor graduate and medical students, and have taught in a graduate neuroscience course. I’ve also attended conferences that allowed me to network with others in the field. Though I’ve not been here very long, I feel like I’ve learned quite a lot. I owe much of that to Matt Layton and Hans Van Dongen. As my primary mentor, Matt has just been so supportive as we work together with our clinical populations. And Hans has been invaluable in terms of my development and career progression. He puts a lot of opportunities in my inbox and across my desk.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.