Jacques Montplaisir is a Professor in Psychiatry and in Neuroscience at the University of Montreal, and is founder and Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Sacre-Coeur Hospital of Montreal, which counts ten full-time researchers and 25 research trainees. In 2001, Dr. Montplaisir obtained a Government of Canada senior Chair for the study of sleep disorders.

Throughout his training and career, Dr. Montplaisir received numerous awards, including the Heinz Lehman Award in 1989 for his contribution to research in psychiatry, the Annual Research Award from the Psychiatrists Association of Quebec for the creation of the Psychopharmacology Chair, and the Excellence 2000 Award from the same association for his contribution to research in psychiatry. He was honored by the CSS during its inaugural meeting in 2001 and by the Venice Club in 2002 for his research on RLS. In 2004, he received the Leo Parizeau Award from the French Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science for biomedical research and, in June 2005, received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Sleep Research Society (USA). He was awarded a major infrastructure grant from the Canadian Innovation Funds in November 2006 for the creation of the multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, which will be affiliated with the University of Montreal. In 2007, he received the Career Award of the Canadian Sleep Society. In 2006 he was president of the 8th World Congress on Sleep Apnea, held in Montreal.

He has enjoyed significant support from several Canadian government and research organizations throughout his training and career, and he presently holds 6 research grants from the CIHR. He has had 3 books, 55 book chapters, over 250 papers and 450 abstracts published in peer-reviewed journals and has given more than 100 invited lectures since 1995.