Joshua Landvatter, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Family & Preventive Medicine’s Behavioral Sleep Medicine Laboratory at the University of Utah, has been selected for a highly competitive T32 Training Grant in Computational Approaches to Diabetes and Metabolism.
The program, offered through the Department of Biomedical Informatics, is designed to train biomedical researchers in applying advanced computational and mathematical methods to complex biological questions that ultimately impact the prevention, treatment, and outcomes of people with diabetes and related metabolic diseases.
Landvatter works under the mentorship of Clinical Psychologist and Public Health Professor Kelly Baron, PhD, whose lab studies the biological and behavioral links between sleep loss and circadian disruption with cardiometabolic diseases including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
The T32 program will expand Landvatter’s research by integrating metabolomics and biomarker profiling with computational modeling, allowing him to explore how daily behaviors like sleep translate into biological changes and impact long-term health. His research will focus on identifying early biomarker patterns linked to metabolic dysfunction, with the goal of understanding how subtle, everyday routines shape biological profiles and influence chronic disease risk. “The T32 allows me to ask not only whether sleep matters, but how it matters mechanistically for metabolic health,” said Landvatter.
Baron praised Landvatter’s selection, noting the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration. "This program is a great opportunity to interface with basic and behavioral scientists and data science to engage in truly innovative research,” she said. “I am so excited for him to be a part of this program.”
Landvatter credits Baron’s mentorship as an essential part of his research development. “Dr. Baron has been foundational to my training and knowledge base in sleep,” he said. “Her encouragement is what prompted me to apply for this T32, and she was key in helping me develop my proposal.”
Looking ahead, Landvatter sees the program as a pivotal step in his scientific career. “This training will help me map how everyday routines such as sleep shape cardiometabolic and inflammatory measures over time and how early, steady changes can potentially steer long-term risk,” he said. “I think of these health-related habits as potential opportunities to instill small course corrections on a long flight, where subtle adjustments may change health outcomes decades later.”
