News Archive

A new approach to treating insomnia has earned Bronwyn Milkins the $2000 first prize in The University of Western Australia's Three Minute Thesis competition.

A PhD student in the UWA School of Psychology's Elizabeth Rutherford Memorial Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, Bronwyn's research focuses on whether the kind of information we pay attention to just before going to sleep contributes to insomnia.

"Millions of Australians are affected by insomnia, which is linked to cognitive impairment and daytime dysfunction," she said.

"Even with the use of psychological treatments for insomnia a large proportion of sufferers do not respond and relapse is common.  How can we design more effective interventions for sufferers? One suggestion is that cognitive-based interventions have promise."

David Gozzard, a PhD student in the UWA School of Physics's Frequency and Quantum Metrology Research Group, was the runner-up with his presentation "A Matter of Time: stabilising signals for precision space science" while Rowan Lymbery won the People's Choice Award for "A Tale of Two Gametes: what role do sperm and eggs play in reproductive success?"  Rowan is a PhD student in the UWA School of Animal Biology's Centre for Evolutionary Biology.

Bronwyn will now represent UWA in the Trans-Tasman Three Minute Thesis , to be held at UWA on Monday 3 November. She will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of last year's winner, UWA student Kelsey Kennedy, who is undertaking her PhD at UWA's Optical and Biomedical Engineering Laboratory.

Finalists from 40 universities will be competing for the first prize of a $5000 research or travel grant.

Media references

Tony Malkovic (UWA Media Office)  (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 11 103 398