G. Vernon Pegram, Ph.D.

After graduating from the University of the South, Sewanee, TN, Dr. Pegram joined the Air Force in 1959.

While in the Air Force, Dr. Pegram became interested in sleep deprivation and studied the optimal work/rest cycles in pilots. Also during this time, Dr. Pegram had the unique opportunity to be a part of the team that trained Ham and Enos, the chimpanzees who preceded Alan Shepard and John Glenn into space. After the Air Force experience, Dr. Pegram completed his Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Pegram then moved to Birmingham and joined the University of Alabama (UAB) in Birmingham faculty. He was in the Department of Psychiatry and later Pulmonary Medicine, either full-time or part-time, for the next 32 years. Dr. Pegram is a licensed Clinical

Psychologist (#411, 1983) and a Diplomat of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, 1978.

Dr. Pegram, along with Drs. Robert Doekel and Frank Sutton, established the Sleep Disorders Center of Alabama in 1976. The Sleep Disorders Center of Alabama was the first accredited sleep center in the state of Alabama and among the earliest in the United States. Dr. Pegram was instrumental in the American Sleep Academy’s effort to establish clinical sleep centers throughout the U.S. He served on the accreditation committee of the American Sleep Academy and helped certify more than 50 sleep centers in the U.S.