Pittsburgh, PA

Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh

Representing: Researchers
Term ends August 2019

Michael Schneider, DC, PhD, holds a doctor of chiropractic degree, as well as a PhD in rehabilitation science. After 30 years of clinical practice, he made the transition from being a clinician to an academic researcher. He now works at the University of Pittsburgh as an Associate Professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, where he is involved with clinical research studies focused on back and neck pain. As a clinician, Schneider was often frustrated by seeing research results that were not relevant to his patients and not very useful in improving clinical practice. He also saw disparities in funding for research into the effectiveness of popular complementary and alternative treatments such as chiropractic, acupuncture, and yoga. This frustration with the status quo in clinical research priorities has stimulated Schneider to design more patient-centered research studies, with input from patients who have actually experienced back and neck pain. Schneider was one of the first researchers in the United States to receive a PCORI comparative effectiveness grant, which is designed to test the effectiveness of three different non-surgical treatment approaches for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis.