Dr. Baland S. Jalal is a researcher at Harvard University, Department of Psychology and visiting researcher at Cambridge University, Department of Psychiatry. He obtained his Ph.D. at Cambridge University, School of Clinical Medicine (Trinity College Cambridge) and was a Fellow at Harvard University (2016, 2018). He is a close collaborator of VS Ramachandran (2011, TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world). His Ph.D. mentors at Cambridge were Barbara Sahakian and Trevor Robbins (the latter ranked “the 4th most influential brain scientist of the modern era”).

He has published 48 peer-reviewed academic papers and co-authored with Devon Hinton (Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School) a book by Cambridge University Press (“Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups: Treating Emotional Disorders”). He has lectured at places like Harvard University, Oxford University and London School of Economics and UCL, and invited to give a TedX talk.

The Telegraph described him as "one of the world's leading experts on sleep paralysis". He was ranked the "top-rated expert in sleep paralysis in the world" on Expertscape based on scientific impact in the past 10 years, and listed by Van Winkle (“sleep blog” by Casper Sleep) as one of the "15 Most Interesting People in Sleep" (researchers, writers, and cultural figures).

His work has been featured in major media like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Today Show, The BBC, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, NBC News, New York Magazine, The Times, Forbes, The Telegraph, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Fox News, Der Spiegel, Discovery, New Scientist, Discover Magazine, VICE, and PBS (NOVA). His writings have appeared in Big Think and Scientific American, and his recent essay featured on the cover of the Boston Globe.

Dr. Jalal’s research focuses on conditions like sleep paralysis, OCD, and anxiety/depressive disorders. He has done research on sleep paralysis around the world (USA, Denmark, Egypt, Italy, Turkey and Poland). He designed one of the first treatments for sleep paralysis: Meditation-Relaxation Therapy - MR Therapy (described in New York Magazine). With VS Ramachandran, Richard J. McNally and colleagues he proposed the use of the rubber hand illusion to treat OCD.