Rate My Professor Suzanne Snodgrass

Professor Suzanne Snodgrass is Professor and Head of the Physiotherapy Discipline in the School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She earned her PhD in Physiotherapy from the University of Newcastle in 2008, the first such degree awarded there, along with a Master of Medical Science from the same university and a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following 10 years in clinical practice as a musculoskeletal and sports physiotherapist and certified athletic trainer, she has over 20 years in teaching and research roles. She directs the Biomechanics and Exercise Testing Laboratory, established in 2012 at the Callaghan campus, and has held positions including Deputy Head of School - Research Training in 2022, Higher Degree Research Convenor, and Research Honours Convenor. She contributes to the Council of Physiotherapy Deans Australia and New Zealand, Australian Physiotherapy Association conference committees, and has organized public research forums on pain and concussion, presented to community groups, and provided expert media commentaries.

Her research focuses on movement control, ageing, and injury rehabilitation, including strategies to identify balance decline in adults under 65, promote physical activity to prevent falls, assess injury risk factors in athletes and pain conditions, and develop interventions for neck and back pain, concussion, and tackling re-education. Specializations encompass biomechanics, postural sway, neurobiological pain mechanisms, muscle composition, sensory perception, and brain activity. She has supervised 24 PhD students over the past decade, with 16 completions, including clinical trials of physiotherapy treatments. Key publications include 'Older age associated with greater brain activity in motor and somatosensory cortices during dual task balance: a cross-sectional study using fNIRS' (2024), 'Brain morphology in individuals with chronic idiopathic neck pain over 6 months: a magnetic resonance longitudinal cohort study' (2024), 'Hip joint assessment in chronic non-specific low back pain. A Delphi study' (2023), 'Movement variability in runners with a current or recent musculoskeletal injury: a systematic review' (2022), and 'Nonlinear running dynamics differ in male sub-elite athletes with a history of hamstring injury' (2022). With over 4,700 citations on Google Scholar, her work influences physiotherapy, biomechanics, and rehabilitation fields. Awards include Fellow of the Australian College of Physiotherapists by Original Contribution, Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Supervision Excellence (2022), and College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing Mid-Career Researcher Award (2022).