Dr. Stone conducts large-scale multi-center cohort studies exploring the interrelationships between sleep and health outcomes, including falls and fractures, cognitive impairment and dementia, cardiovascular disease and mortality.

She leads multi-center randomized trials to test whether treating sleep problems such as insomnia improves health and wellbeing in adults of all ages. She is principal Investigator (in collaboration with Daniel Buysse, M.D.) for the PCORI-funded trial, Comparative Effectiveness of Zolpidem and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Rural Adults (COZI).

Dr. Stone directs the MrOS (Osteoporotic Fractures in Men) and SOF Sleep Studies, in which sleep was measured objectively and subjectively in over 6,000 older adults. Findings from these studies have been reported in nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications, focused on the relationship of sleep and circadian rest-activity rhythms and age-related outcomes.

These studies have yielded groundbreaking findings, such as demonstrating for the first time that sleep apnea in older women predicts future risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia, Ancillary studies are ongoing in these cohorts, focused on elucidating mechanistic links between sleep and age-related outcomes such as dementia and cardiovascular disease.

Leveraging her research in large cohort studies, Dr. Stone has decades of experience collecting 24-hour sleep and activity data using wearable devices, and currently directs the actigraphy reading center for multiple NIH-funded studies such as WHISPER (an ancillary to the Women’s Health Initiative). The objectives of this study are to determine how sleep and circadian rhythms predict incident cardiovascular, cancer and cognitive outcomes in older women.

Dr. Stone is adjunct professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. She is Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journals, SLEEP and Annals of the American Thoracic Society, and is a member of the Methods and Population Health Council of the National Sleep Foundation. She served as a member of the Executive Committee and co-Chair of the Clinical Trials Outcomes Working Group for the National Sleep Research Network, and served as a charter member of several NIH Study Sections, including NHLBI’s Mentored Patient Oriented Research (MPOR) review panel.

Dr. Stone received her M.A. in biostatistics and her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley.