Poor sleep quality is a prevalent problem across the lifespan and may be especially detrimental during critical periods like pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence. In my laboratory, we aim to understand how poor sleep contributes to impairments in behavioral outcomes, including cognitive function. My ultimate goal is to lead a translational research program that may introduce new therapeutic approaches to alleviate outcomes for those suffering with sleep problems throughout the lifespan.

The laboratory thrives with the creative nature and hard work of fantastic trainees and I always welcome inquisitive minds to reach out for opportunities to join my team.

Email pocivavsek.lab@gmail.com!

Noteworthy News

Spring 2024 was full of action! Courtney Wright was awarded a @USC SPARC graduate fellowship and a Maternal & Child health graduate fellowship! Sam Walther received a Magellan Scholar Award from @USC Office of the Vice President of Research! Sam was also honored with fellowship from the Sleep Research Society to attend SLEEP 2024 in Houston, TX! Charlie Grant received a SURF Award from @USC Honors College! Courtney Wright & Charlie Grant were award winners at Discover USC 2024!

New paper alert! Publication in Journal of Sleep Research from a highly collaborative effort entitled “Reducing brain kynurenic acid precludes kynurenine-induced sleep disturbances”!

Our review is published in Neurobiology of Stress entitled “The stress of losing sleep: Sex-specific neurobiological outcomes". The article is part of a Special Issue edited by Drs. Thomas Neylan and Gina Poe focused on Sleep and Stress Exposure: From Neurobiology to Clinical Outcomes. Congrats to first author Courtney Wright!

Discover USC 2023 was a huge success! Very proud of Dr. Snezana Milosavljevic for winning 1st place at the postdoctoral scholars poster session!

Congrats to first author Dr. Snezana Milosavljevic for a new publication in Translational Psychiatry that places critical attention on KAT II inhibition as a novel strategy to improve sleep stability. Press release is available on the USC School of Medicine news page!

Graduate student Katie Rentschler successfully defended her PhD on March 8, 2023!

Dr. Pocivavsek received recognition as a 2022 Breakthrough Star at USC!

Spring and Summer 2022 were finally filled with in-person presentation opportunities and awards for our lab at Discover USC, Neurobiology of Stress Workshop, and annual SLEEP meeting. Congratulations to Dr. Snezana Milosavljevic, Hayley Nicholson, and Sarisha Menon for awards at Discover USC and Snezana also received recognition at the Stress Workshop in the postdoctoral presentation category!

Collaborative machine learning approach to sleep stage classification with Dr. Homayoun Valafar’s research group was accepted to 2021 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)! Full paper is available online!

Congratulations to undergraduate Sarisha Menon for Magellan Award from @USC Office of the Vice President of Research!

Congratulations to undergraduate Hayley Nicholson for a SURF Award from @USC Honors College @SCHonorsCollege for her senior thesis research!

Congratulations to graduate student Katie Rentschler for successfully proposing her dissertation project to her thesis committee in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program!

Congratulations to Courtney Wright and Katie Rentschler for a co-first author publication in Frontiers in Psychiatry!

We had a great time presenting at the virtual platform for Discover USC 2021! Very proud of all our trainees who swept the awards categories: Dr. Snezana Milosavljevic, Katie Rentschler, Courtney Wright, & Emma Sandago

Congratulations to undergraduate Emma Sandago for Magellan Award from @USC Office of the Vice President of Research!

Congratulations to Dr. Snezana Milosavljevic for being awarded a postdoctoral ASPIRE award from @USC Office of the Vice President of Research!

Congratulations to Katie Rentschler for being awarded a graduate student SPARC grant from the @USC Office of the Vice President of Research!