Sarah H Sperry, PhD

Dr. Sperry joined the Department of Psychiatry as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in September 2021. She began researching the affective and cognitive correlates of bipolar disorder as an undergraduate at Tufts University and research coordinator at McLean Hospital. She went on to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where her research focused on characterizing the temporal dynamics of emotion and impulsivity in daily life. Dr. Sperry then completed her APA accredited clinical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in the Addiction Sciences Division and Sleep Treatment and Research Program where she received both clinical and research training in co-occurring bipolar disorder, sleep disorders, and substance use disorders. Following residency, Dr. Sperry completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

At the University of Michigan, Dr. Sperry is the Director of the Emotion and Temporal Dynamics (EmoTe) Lab and an Associate Director of the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program. In 2025 she was named the Richard Tam Early Career Professor of Translational Bipolar Resesearch. Dr. Sperry’s broad mission to improve early detection, predict illness trajectory, and develop personalized interventions for bipolar spectrum disorders. Within this broader mission, she uses mobile technology (smartphones, wearable devices), affective neuroscience methods (EEG), and intensive longitudinal modeling to characterize and understand affective, cognitive, and circadian mechanisms underlying bipolar spectrum disorders. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the Breakthrough Discoveries for Thriving with Bipolar Disorder (BD2) Foundation, and several intramural awards from the Eisenberg Family Depression Center at the UM.

Dr. Sperry has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in the field of bipolar disorder, emotion, and impulsivity and has received several prestigious awards including the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) Samuel Gershon Junior Investigator Award, the Society for Biological Psychology (SOBP) Travel Fellowship, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Senior Travel Award, and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award. Given her expertise in using mobile technology to study psychopathology, she was selected to serve as the Apps and Wearables Workgroup Lead for the BD2 Integrated Network Initiative, the mood disorders lead of the Mobile Technologies Research Innovation Collaborative (MeTRIC) at the UM, and an executive board member of the Society for Ambulatory Assessment.

Dr. Sperry is a Clinical Psychologist in the Bipolar Clinic in Ambulatory Psychiatry where she developed the psychology training program. She supervises pre-doctoral clinical psychology trainees from programs around southeast Michigan and postdoctoral fellows from the MICHMED/VA Ann Arbor Postdoctoral Training in Psychology. This psychology training program is unique and one of few opportunities for focused evidenced-based training in psychotherapy for bipolar disorder nationwide.

Dr. Sperry is actively engaged in local and international service. She serves as consulting or associate editor at several premiere clinical psychology, psychiatry, and personality journals. She holds several leadership positions within committees and workgroups within the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) and Society for Research in Psychopathology (SRP) and was a founding member of the Early and Mid-Career Committee (EMCC) for the ISBD.

- Bipolar Disorder
- Co-Occurring Substance Use
- Impulsivity
- Emotion Regulation
- Sleep and Ciracdian Dysregulation