Mathias Basner

Astronaut behavioral health on long-duration space missions, studying how microgravity affects human cognition and behavior.

Effects of sleep loss on neurobehavioral and cognitive functions.

Environmental effects on sleep and health, including the impact of noise and environmental factors on wellbeing. 

View a complete list of Dr. Basner's publications chronologically by year or by citation.

The New Yorker: Can the Human Body Endure a Voyage to Mars?

TED Talk: Why noise is bad for your health -- and what you can do about it

Podcast: Exploration Medicine, "The Effects of Isolated, Confined and Extreme Environments on the Human Brain"

Podcast: This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg, "How Noise Affects Our Brains"

Podcast: NPR's The Pulse, "How Noise Annoys"

Podcast: Stats + Stories, "The Best Friend on Friends"

Honors and Awards

• In September 2025, Dr. Basner was awarded the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This prestigious agency award was established in 1961 to recognize individual or team efforts that lead to a key scientific discovery, a fundamental contribution to a scientific field, or a significant enhancement of scientific understanding. Former recipients include multiple Nobel laureates.

Additional Affiliations

• President, International Commission of Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN)
• Member, Impacts and Science Group of the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
• Investigator, University of Pennsylvania in FAA’s Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT)

• Dr. Basner received his degree in Medicine and his PhD in Research from the University of Bochum, Germany and his Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Dr. Basner trained at the Institute for Applied Physiology at the University of Bochum and worked as a Research Associate at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Flight Physiology Division from 1999 until 2006 before moving to the United States to pursue his research interests in the neurobehavioral consequences of sleep loss as a Research Associate. He returned to DLR in 2008 to head the Flight Physiology Division for two years. In January 2010, Dr. Basner assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Sleep and Chronobiology in Psychiatry and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2015 and to Full Professor in 2020. He was appointed Director of the Behavioral Regulation and Health Section of the Department of Psychiatry in 2019.

Dr. Basner sometimes engages in projects that could be considered “odd”, but always have the goal to highlight scientific principles.

Does sleep science stand the test of time? Revisiting Kohlschütter's 1862 research on sleep depth.

In 2010, Dr. Basner published a manuscript titled “Arousal threshold determination in 1862: Kohlschütter’s Measurements on the Firmness of Sleep” in the journal Sleep Medicine. Ernst Kohlschütter was the first to systematically use sounds of varying intensity he generated with a pendular hammer hitting a thick slate slab to investigate the depth of sleep. Dr. Basner re-analyzed Kohlschütter’s raw data with modern regression techniques and compared them with a study on the effects of aircraft noise on sleep in 128 subjects.

Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel or Ross? A systematic analysis to find the best Friend. 

Dr. Basner and his family systematically scored positive and negative friendship deeds across all 236 episodes of the TV series Friends and found that Joey was the best Friend, closely followed by Ross. The analysis was published in Significance, a magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association. Here, Dr. Basner concludes: “Many of our decisions and views are governed by gut feelings, with very limited understanding of and control over what constitutes those feelings. Gut feelings are important and have served us (mostly) well on our evolutionary journey. However, they can also be misleading. Therefore, it can be helpful to identify a quantitative approach for a problem and gather the necessary data in a way that minimizes bias. The data may reveal aspects of the outcome of interest that are inaccessible by other techniques (like opinion polls). Importantly, the data generated can be objectively scrutinized by others, and thus become the basis of further discussion and informed decision making.” This analysis was also featured in a Stats + Stories Podcast.

Avoiding a Christmas Catastrophe: Rudolph the Bright-White-Nosed Reindeer? A Nap for Saint Nick? An analysis of global fatigue-related sleigh crash risk analysis.

Together with colleagues from WSU, Dr. Basner published an Editorial in the journal Sleep Health titled “Seasonal night-work with extended hours and transmeridian travel: An analysis of global fatigue-related sleigh crash risk analysis”. Santa Claus’ delivery route was extracted from the North American Aerospace Defense Command and it was determined that sleigh crash risk was highest over North America. While fun is a big part of the article, it highlights many principles of fatigue risk management systems that are important for mitigating the risks of duty schedules that include extended work periods or rotating shifts.