Dr Cunnington is an experienced sleep physician with broad clinical expertise in the diagnosis and management of sleep disorders and the measurement of sleep.
Dr Cunnington's research focuses on the assessment and management of insomnia and other sleep disorders, with particular emphasis on behavioural and cognitive approaches — Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), mindfulness, and acceptance-based therapies. Alongside evaluating the efficacy of these treatments, including a widely cited meta-analysis of CBT-I for chronic insomnia, Dr Cunnington's work increasingly addresses a translational problem: how to make effective non-drug treatments accessible at scale — through clinician training and dissemination, digital and consumer sleep technologies, and community-oriented, co-designed models of sleep health. Dr Cunnington is also interested in the mechanisms that perpetuate poor sleep, particularly hyperarousal and pre-sleep cognitive arousal, and in reducing disparities in access to evidence-based sleep care.