From Stephan Taylor, M.D., Interim Chair of the Department of Psychiatry:
"I am very pleased to announce two new professorships and their inaugural appointees, Dr. Helen Burgess and Dr. Sarah Sperry, confirmed by votes of the Regents of the University of Michigan in February 2025, funded by the Richard Tam Foundation, to support the growth of translational research capacity of the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program:
The Richard Tam Bipolar and Circadian Research Professorship. The professorship will be used to support the research work of an outstanding investigator in the Department of Psychiatry who is advancing knowledge about the role of circadian rhythms for people living with bipolar disorder.
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Dr. BurgessThe Department of Psychiatry nominated, and the Regents have approved, Helen J. Burgess, Ph.D., as the inaugural Richard Tam Bipolar and Circadian Research Professor. Dr. Burgess is currently full Professor with tenure and a Co-Director of the Sleep and Circadian Research Laboratory. She is internationally renowned for her work in the impact of sleep and circadian rhythm regulation, including how dysregulation of these processes appears in psychiatric conditions. At the invitation of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Dr. Burgess assisted in formulating the latest clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders with light therapy and melatonin. She has also made multiple invited presentations at the National Institutes of Health, and was recently invited to presented her research to NASA. Her current research focuses on the assessment and treatment of sleep and circadian disturbance in a variety of human clinical conditions including alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain conditions, HIV, inflammatory bowel disease and bipolar disorder.
The Richard Tam Early Career Professorship of Translational Bipolar Research. The professorship will support the recruitment or retention of an early career faculty member who specializes in bipolar disorder in the Department of Psychiatry.
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Dr. SperryThe Department of Psychiatry nominated, and the Regents have approved, Sarah H. Sperry, Ph.D., as the inaugural Richard Tam Early Career Professor of Translational Bipolar Research. Dr. Sperry is one of the rising stars in our department, with energy, passion and creativity, making her a natural choice for this early career professorship. In her work, she pursues the broad mission to improve early detection, predict illness trajectory, and develop personalized interventions for bipolar spectrum disorders. Within this broader mission, she uses mobile technology (smartphones, wearable devices) and intensive longitudinal modeling to characterize and understand intraindividual variability in emotion and behavior in real-world contexts. Her innovative work around characterizing and tracking mood instability in bipolar disorder has been recently published in Nature Mental Health, and the approach she is developing may provide a novel treatment target to improve the lives of people with this devastating disorder.
Please join me in thanking the Richard Tam Foundation for their most generous support and congratulating Drs. Burgess and Sperry on their appointment to the Tam Professorships. A joint inauguration will be held in the coming months."
