See monthly calendar for regularly scheduled events.

TFASS
Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Vernon Grant, PhD
Assistant Research Professor, Montana State University
Topic: Assessing Sleep in Blackfeet Families
Pikanii Paokaan (Blackfeet Dreams) is a 7-week sleep intervention with adult and child dyads to increase nightly sleep. During summer of 2023, we successfully recruited 30 adults and 30 children (families) to participate in the sleep intervention. In November 2023, all participants reported to the tribal council chambers of the Blackfeet Nation for pre-intervention data collection. We collected height and weight and participants completed surveys on demographic information, sleep, stress and mental health, diet, and screen time. Before each participant left they were given three books from the Blackfeet Heritage Collection. The following week, all participants completed waketime and bedtime diaries to get an indication of pre-intervention sleep patterns. The intervention included two different components. Community-identified strategies were incorporated into all aspects of the intervention that were discussed during focus groups and interviews in 2022. The first component was text messages in the morning and evening. Morning texts included Blackfoot language with a link to a YouTube page where participants could learn to properly pronounce the words. Evening texts included sleep tips and suggested readings from the Blackfeet books. The second component of the intervention was a closed Facebook page where we included clips of elders talking about traditional thoughts on sleep. We also posted Blackfoot lullabies for our participants to listen to at night. Collectively, the texts and Facebook content were meant to help families get into a bedtime routine and obtain more nightly sleep. After 7 weeks, we collected post-intervention data on all participants and also interviewed 10 participants to evaluate the intervention. The following week participants completed waketime and bedtime diaries. We found that the depression anxiety and stress scale score significantly increased sleep trouble and playing outside for more than one hour significantly decreased sleep trouble. In addition, we found that each additional child in the household decreased sleep (hours) and playing outside for more than an hour increased sleep (hours). These findings suggest that children playing outside is paramount to sleep quality and quantity and decreasing stress is vitally important for sleep quality.

TFASS
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Stephanie Crowley, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Rush University
Topic:
To be announced


TFASS
Tuesday, December 16, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Lauren Asarnow, PhD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology and Pediatrics, University of Southern California School of Medicine
Topic:
To be announced


TFASS
Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Fiona Baker, PhD
Senior Program Director, Human Sleep Research Laboratory, SRI International
Topic:
To be announced


TFASS
Tuesday, February 17, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Speaker and topic to be announced

TFASS
Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Lauren Hartstein, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Arizona College of Medicine
Topic:
To be announced


TFASS
Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD
Professor of Nutritional Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Topic:
To be announced


TFASS
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Alicia Chung, EdD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health, NYU Langone
Topic:
To be announced