Dr. Julio Fernandez-Mendoza's research focuses on the relationship between disturbed, insufficient and misaligned sleep with cardiometabolic, neurocognitive and psychopathologic morbidity and mortality. He is examining these relationships in population-based cohorts of young children, adolescents and adults studied in the sleep lab and at home. His overarching goal is to better understand the maturational trajectories, natural course and associated health outcomes of normal and inadequate sleep and improve the phenotyping of its heterogeneous disorders, particularly insomnia and sleep apnea. His research relies on both subjective and objective methods and techniques such as standardized neurocognitive testing, polysomnography, spectral/FFT analysis, ambulatory actigraphy and inflammatory, stress, metabolic and sleep EEG biomarkers. His other research interests encompass testing the comparative effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral vs. pharmacological therapies for insomnia and its phenotypes.

Associate Vice Chair for Faculty Research Development in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Penn State College of Medicine

Fellow, American Heart Association (Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health), 2025

Diplomate in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, Board of Behavioral Sleep Medicine, July 2018

Certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, American Board of Sleep Medicine, October 2014

Somnologist - Expert in Behavioural Sleep Medicine, European Sleep Research Society, September 2014

Licensed Psychologist, Pennsylvania State Board of Psychology, April 2013

Dr. Julio Fernandez-Mendoza's clinical practice includes a wide array of sleep-wake disorders, with a special emphasis on insomnia disorder, circadian rhythm sleep disorders, nightmare disorder and hypersomnia disorders. Clinically, he is a sleep psychologist applying behavioral sleep medicine (BSM) principles and therapies to assessing the onset, course and perpetuation of sleep and circadian disorders and intervening on the behavioral, cognitive and light-dependent factors contributing to the chronicity of these disorders. Specific BSM treatments he provides or supervises in his routine clinical practice include cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), chronotherapy and bright light therapy (BLT) exposure for circadian disorders, imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) for nightmare disorder, exposure relaxation and rescripting therapy (ERRT) for post-traumatic nightmares, scheduled napping and behavioral activation for hypersomnia disorders and mood-related sleep inertia, cognitive-behavioral therapy for night eating syndrome (CBT-NES) or behavioral desensitization and tolerance (BDT) for PAP adherence and compliance. He trains clinical psychology interns, psychiatry residents and neurology residents. He provides care in English and Spanish.

Dr. Julio Fernandez-Mendoza's teaching and educational interests include formal lecturing, clinical training and research mentoring of master-level students, medical students (MSR) and doctoral-level students as well as postdoctoral fellows, residents and junior faculty. His areas of mentorship and teaching focus on sleep physiology and behavior, sleep nosology, behavioral sleep medicine (BSM), population-based science and cognitive neuroscience. He teaches and trains within the scope of the Anatomy, Neuroscience, Psychology Internship, and Psychiatry Residency training programs at Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health. He has served on several dissertation committees for the graduate programs just mentioned as well as for the Epidemiology, Biobehavioral Health and Nursing doctoral programs. As per clinical training, he serves as Director of the BSM Training Program, which is accredited by the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine to train the next generation of Diplomates in BSM (DBSM).