Rate My Professor Richard Shields

Richard Shields, PT, PhD, FAPTA, is the Gary L. Soderberg Endowed Professor, Chair, and Department Executive Officer of the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. He earned his PhD from the University of Iowa. Shields directs the Human Movement Control and Performance Laboratory, focusing his research on neuromusculoskeletal plasticity following spinal cord injury. His investigations cover skeletal muscle and bone adaptations to disuse, neuromuscular electrical stimulation training, low-frequency H-reflex depression, muscle fatigue and contractile properties in paralyzed muscles, reflex excitability, cortical excitability, motor learning during visuomotor tasks with perturbations, and interventions to enhance metabolic health such as glucose regulation and insulin sensitivity in individuals with spinal cord injury. Supported by NIH grants including R01 NR-010285, R01 HD-062507, R01 NS094387, and UL1 TR002537, his laboratory conducts longitudinal and cross-sectional studies to develop novel rehabilitation strategies.

Shields has authored over 200 publications with more than 5,000 citations, significantly impacting rehabilitation science. Key works include "Muscle and bone plasticity after spinal cord injury: review of adaptations to disuse and to electrical muscle stimulation" (Dudley-Javoroski and Shields, Gait & Posture, 2008), "Musculoskeletal plasticity after acute spinal cord injury: effects of long-term neuromuscular electrical stimulation training" (Shields and Dudley-Javoroski, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2006), "Muscular, skeletal, and neural adaptations following spinal cord injury" (Shields, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2002), "Low frequency depression of H-reflexes in humans with acute and chronic spinal-cord injury" (Schindler-Ivens and Shields, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2000), and "Turning Over the Hourglass" (Shields, Physical Therapy, 2017). In 2017, he delivered the 48th Mary McMillan Lecture at the American Physical Therapy Association NEXT Conference, the highest honor recognizing excellence in administration, education, research, patient care, and management. Other distinctions include the Gary L. Soderberg Professorship (2019), John H.P. Maley Award for Outstanding Contributions to Leadership in Research (2012), and contributions to national benchmarks for Doctor of Physical Therapy education and psychometric analysis of clinical evaluation tools.