She recently received a five-year $2-million grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to study the effects of a ventilator therapy on behavior and cognition in school-aged children who stop breathing during sleep, a condition called obstructive sleep apnea. This study is the first known to use a placebo or sham PAP ventilator, created by Kristen and her research team, in school-aged children and compare it to actual PAP.