Curiosity has made James Krueger, professor of veterinary and comparative anatomy, pharmacology and physiology (VCAPP), a better researcher.
“Curiosity motivates me as a researcher; it always has. I love the feeling of discovering something for the first time,” he said. “Science can be really thrilling.”
Krueger’s research focuses on the biochemical regulation of sleep, the relationships between sleep and infectious disease, how the brain is organized to produce sleep and why we sleep.
“Sleep function remains one of science’s major enigmas,” he said. “An understanding of the unconsciousness associated with sleep is a likely stepping stone to the ‘holy grail’ of understanding consciousness.”
His curiosity helps explain his myriad of awards and success as a scientist. He is a previous WSU Sahlin award winner for research. He received the Pfizer Research Award in the College of Veterinary Medicine, a Javits (merit) Award from NIH/NINDS, the Board of Trustees Award at the Chicago Medical School, a Distinguished Scientist Award at the Sleep Research Society annual meeting in 2006 and an honorary MD from the University of Szeged, Hungary.
Although Krueger undoubtedly inspires people with his work, others have inspired him along the way, including his mentors at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard and his colleagues at WSU.
“Drs. Greg Belenky, Hans Van Dongen, Jaak Panksepp and David Rector have made WSU one of the world’s leading sleep research institutions,” he said.
Location keeps him going, as well. In fact, living in a place like Pullman might be an award in itself for Krueger.
“I’ve lived in big cities all my life and I tired of it,” he said. “I learned of WSU through a postdoc of mine in Tennessee (Mark Opp, WSU Ph.D. 1984, now a professor at the University of Michigan). While biking through the lovely Tennessee countryside, he would always comment on biking in Pullman, its beauty and difficulty. Now I know he was right.”
Krueger is appreciative of how easy it is to live In Pullman: “Every day I gain a couple of extra hours that in a larger city would be spent in traffic or lines.”
Those hours have added up to another item to add to his accomplishments: he is a new WSU Regents professor.
