Lighten Up! On Biology and Time

This event is the annual Prize Medal Lecture for the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford. It is open to the public. Coffee will be served from 10.00am, and the lecture will begin at 10.30am.

Speaker biography

Anna Wirz-Justice is Professor emeritus at the University of Basel Psychiatric Clinic, where she founded the Centre for Chronobiology, studying human circadian rhythms and sleep, mood, and performance, as well as diagnosis and treatment of circadian and seasonal disorders.

She introduced light therapy for winter depression to Europe, and extended the application of light to other illnesses, from non-seasonal affective disorder to sleep disturbances in medicine.

Her focus is now on the architectural use of (day)light to influence wellbeing and health. She is co-curator of an upcoming exhibition of artists who have incorporated concepts of chronobiology and light into their work.