After a distinguished career spanning over four decades in our department, Michael V. Vitiello, PhD, will retire at the end of this month. Known for his brilliant mind, good humor, candid feedback and affinity for wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts, he has been an incredible asset to our department and the UW community. Dr. Vitiello is giving Grand Rounds this Friday, April 22 at 12 PM, if you’d like to hear about his latest work focused on treating chronic insomnia in older adults.

Dr. Vitiello earned an AB in psychology from Columbia University and a PhD in Psychology from UW. He joined the department in 1980 where he began collaborating with Patricia Prinz, PhD, on sleep research. Over the next 40 years, he established himself as an internationally recognized expert in sleep, circadian rhythms, and sleep disorders in aging with a focus on the causes, consequences and treatments of disturbed sleep, circadian rhythms, and cognition in older adults. He is the author of 680+ scientific articles, reviews, chapters, editorials and abstracts and his work has been cited over 26,000 times. He leaves the Department on an up note with the publication of a career high 18 papers in 2021 and 7 more in 2022 to date.

In addition to being a professor in our department, he is an adjunct professor in Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine and Biobehavioral Nursing & Health Informatics, Co-Director of the Northwest Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Center, and a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Vitiello has served as: President of the Sleep Research Society and of the Sleep Research Society Foundation; Chair of the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board, National Institutes of Health; Scientific Program Chair of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies;  a board member of the Sleep Research Society, the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine, the National Sleep Foundation, and an editorial board member for numerous scientific journals. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Sleep Medicine Reviews and plans to continue in that role as well as his collaboration with several research groups for the next few years. Beyond that, his immediate retirement plans are to catch up on all the traveling he and his wife, Dr. Mary A Baroni, missed out on over the last three years.

We wish Dr. Vitiello a wonderful, joyful retirement!