Matthew Walker (scientist)
Matthew Walker is a British author and scientist who studies how sleep affects health. He is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and leads the Center for Human Sleep Science there.
He was born in Liverpool, England, and grew up there and in Chester. He earned a BSc in neuroscience from the University of Nottingham and a PhD in neurophysiology from Newcastle University, with funding from the Medical Research Council.
Walker spent much of his career in the United States. He joined Harvard Medical School as an assistant professor of psychiatry in 2004, where he explored how sleep helps learning and memory. In 2007 he moved to UC Berkeley, where he founded the Center for Human Sleep Science. The center uses brain imaging, sleep EEG, genomics and other methods to study sleep and its role in health and disease, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, cancer, depression, obesity and diabetes.
He is best known for Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (2017), a popular science book written over four years that argues sleep loss is linked to many health problems. The book became a bestseller in the UK and the US and helped popularize discussions about sleep. Walker has given talks and interviews widely, including a TED Talk in 2019 and appearances on podcasts.
In 2018 he worked with Project Baseline to develop a sleep diary. He has said he advised Google on sleep research, but stopped in early 2020.
Walker’s work has sparked debate. Critics have questioned some of his interpretations of data, and a 2019 Neuron article he published was retracted in 2020 due to overlap with another publication. He remains a prominent figure in sleep science, continuing to study how sleep influences brain health, metabolism and disease.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:22 (CET).