Contact Info
wilfred.pigeon2@va.gov
(585) 393-7918

Publications https://bit.ly/2Z4VYwL

Research Interests

Wilfred R. Pigeon, PhD is a Senior Investigator at the CoE, where he has conducted research since the founding of the CoE in 2007. He served as Executive Director from 2016-2022 and Research Director from 2011-2016. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center where he is Director of the Sleep & Neurophysiology Research Laboratory. His research focuses on: (1) the mechanisms, consequences and treatment of sleep disturbance that co-occur with PTSD/trauma, depression, suicidality, and chronic pain and (2) developing novel intervention approaches to address these co-occurring conditions enhance sleep. Dr. Pigeon has served as a subject matter expert in both insomnia and suicide prevention for the VA and is an internationally recognized expert in each of these domains. He and his team have done seminal work on the interface of sleep and suicide.

As of 2023, he had authored two books, several training manuals, 25 book chapters and 160 peer-reviewed articles. He has served on and/or chaired several national committees, task forces and expert panels including serving on the work group that developed VA’s Training & Dissemination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) and chairing the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Behavioral Sleep Medicine Committee Dr. Pigeon is also a licensed psychologist who trains clinicians locally and nationally on behavioral sleep medicine interventions and especially the delivery of and adaptation of CBT-I to unique populations. He and his team have developed a brief from of CBT-I that cab be delivered in primary care settings and a national training for clinicians to be trained in this approach. In addition to these kinds of training, he also mentors research trainees from undergraduates to graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior investigators.