Photo of Jess Meyer smiling at camera in green shirt and black jacket

KL2 Scholar Jess Meyer, Ph.D., KU Medical Center

By Kelly Hale, Marketing & Communications Specialist

Sep 09, 2025

Project Overview: Meyer’s KL2 research will use a life course approach to investigate how sleep duration predicts epigenetic aging. Specifically, she will examine how sleep duration from adolescence to early midlife associates with epigenetic aging in early midlife. Meyer will also gain training related to sleep health interventions, as well as training on the relationship between sleep and aging.

Mentor: Katie (Catherine) F. Siengsukon, Ph.D., PT, DBSM, CHWC

She is fortunate to have the guidance of esteemed mentors in her research journey, including Kathleen Mullan Harris, Ph.D., Allison E. Aiello, Ph.D., and Devin C. Koestler, Ph.D.

Jess Meyer’s, Ph.D., research, situated at the intersection of sociology and health, examines how social determinants influence a person’s health, particularly their sleep patterns. She also studies how poor sleep affects a person’s overall health and the aging process.

“As a sociologist, I’ve been interested in how people use their time,” Meyer said. “Any dimensions of sleep health that are reflected in time use are an area I am interested in, and so far, a key component of my research has been time diaries. Time diaries can capture when you wake up, what your next activity is, and how long you spend working.” Time-related aspects of sleep include duration, timing, and whether sleep is regular between weekdays and weekends.

“I haven’t yet looked at areas like sleep apnea as much, which is more of a clinical aspect,” she said. “So far, I have focused more on things that you wouldn’t classify as a clinical disorder per se, but that are still relevant to health and well-being.” For instance, “Could even 30 minutes of time difference have implications for your health and well-being?”

One area that could be impacting sleep is the prevalence of streaming.

Meyer led a time diary analysis showing that, from 2003 to 2019, a period during which streaming expanded, people reported going to bed earlier and also stopping TV watching at earlier times.

“These changes in TV watching were statistically related to changes in bedtimes,” she said. “In this study, we can’t say streaming had a causal impact per se, but there have been societal changes over time that could be impacting sleep.”

The time diaries cannot objectively answer whether people were on their phones once they went to bed.

“And,” Meyer notes, “public health knowledge around sleep has increased so that could be a change as well.”

As Meyer delves into her time in the KL2 program, she hopes to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between sleep and aging. For her KL2 project, she is examining the relationship between sleep duration and epigenetic aging measures, which utilize DNA methylation in the body to assess biological aging.

“These measures can help assess whether some people are aging faster than others,” she said. “For example, if someone who is 40 shows a DNA methylation profile that looks more like what we would expect in a 45-year-old, then you’d say they have accelerated epigenetic aging.”

By investigating potential causes of accelerated aging before the onset of older adulthood, Meyer hopes to identify opportunities to intervene and prevent aging-related diseases earlier, offering a ray of hope in the field of health research.

In addition to her research project, Meyer looks forward to the career development and team science aspects of the KL2 program, as she hopes to lead her own teams in the future.

“This is a great opportunity for me to learn skills, like how to put a team together, management of teams, and how to do things to improve the science,” Meyer said. “I appreciate the mentorship from the people leading the KL2 program as well.”

Kelly Hale

Marketing & Communications Specialist

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