Mississippi State University, Department of Psychology
About the Lab
The Sleep, Suicide, and Aging Lab investigates the connections between sleep disturbance and psychological health, with a particular focus on how disrupted sleep contributes to suicidal behavior, and how these dynamics differ across the lifespan. Our work is motivated by a straightforward but critically important observation: people who sleep poorly are at significantly higher risk for suicidal ideation and attempts, and treating sleep problems may be an underutilized lever for suicide prevention. We are particularly passionate about serving individuals with serious mental illnesses, who often struggle most to access quality care despite having the greatest need.
Our lab uses a range of methods including large-scale survey studies, clinical trials, community-based interventions, and longitudinal designs. We study populations ranging from college students to older adults in long-term care facilities, and we have active collaborations across the United States and internationally. We also have a deep commitment to disseminating evidence-based interventions to rural communities through implementation science, ensuring that cutting-edge research reaches those who are often hardest to serve.
The lab has produced more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has been supported by more than $15 million in external funding from SAMHSA, NIH (NIMH), the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and other agencies. We welcome graduate student trainees and regularly collaborate with other researchers. See the For Students page if you're interested in joining.
What We Study
Our flagship line of research examines how nightmares and insomnia elevate suicide risk, the mechanisms that explain this connection, and how treating sleep disorders can reduce suicidality. We have studied this relation in college students, outpatient and inpatient psychiatric patients, veterans, and older adults.
We study the prevalence, correlates, and consequences of chronic nightmares. A central focus is Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT), an evidence-based, brief treatment for nightmares, including its application in underserved and high-risk populations. Dr. Nadorff's 2025 book, The Nightmare and Sleep Disorder Toolkit, extends this work for public use.
Sleep changes meaningfully across the lifespan. We study how sleep problems in older adults relate to depression, anxiety, cognitive functioning, and suicide risk. We have conducted research in primary care, long-term care, and community samples, often in collaboration with geriatric medicine colleagues.
Beyond laboratory research, our lab has led and evaluated large-scale suicide prevention initiatives. These include campus gatekeeper training programs, community mental health awareness campaigns, and multi-year SAMHSA-funded prevention grants. We are particularly interested in how to build sustainable, community-embedded prevention infrastructure.
As a member of the International COVID Sleep Study (ICOSS) consortium, we have collaborated on multinational research examining how major life disruptions, including the pandemic, affect sleep across countries and cultures. Our work contributes to a growing understanding of global sleep health.
We are deeply committed to addressing the mental health needs of rural communities, which are too often underserved and under-resourced. Using an implementation science approach, our work focuses on extending the reach of evidence-based treatments to rural settings where access to care is limited. We are interested in understanding the barriers and facilitators to treatment adoption and sustainability in these communities, with the ultimate goal of reducing mental health disparities across Mississippi and the broader rural South.
Signature Program
The Alliance Project is a suicide prevention gatekeeper training developed at Mississippi State University. Gatekeeper trainings teach everyday people — students, teachers, coworkers, first responders, faith leaders — to recognize the warning signs of suicide, start a caring conversation, and connect a person at risk with help. The Alliance Project was built to be brief, practical, and deliverable at scale, so that an entire campus or community can be trained without specialized clinical staff.
What sets the program apart is its evidence base. The Alliance Project was developed and validated through MSU's Garrett Lee Smith campus suicide prevention grants and has been independently evaluated in the peer-reviewed literature (Kuhlman et al., 2021). Research on the program is ongoing in our lab: doctoral student Jose Menjivar's dissertation is examining whether the training changes not just knowledge and attitudes, but actual intervention behavior — the question that matters most.
Today the program is delivered statewide by our team at MSU Behavioral Health under the direction of Dr. Rachel-Clair Franklin, and it anchors the training arms of several of our funded projects. Through our partnership with the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, our team trains thousands of Mississippians each year in suicide prevention and postvention.
External Funding
Note: Selected grants shown. Additional NIH R15 awards, internal grants, and co-investigator roles not listed above.
Partnerships
Our lab maintains active collaborations with researchers at institutions across the U.S. and internationally, including Baylor College of Medicine, West Virginia University, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and multiple international partners through the ICOSS consortium. We also serve on data and safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) for NIH-funded clinical trials.