Professor Suzanne Snodgrass

Professor Suzanne Snodgrass

Physiotherapist, educator, and researcher Professor Suzanne Snodgrass is helping clinicians improve patient outcomes by showing how just effective movement can be in improving balance and recovering from pain and sports injuries. A HMRI and University researcher, Suzanne is leading research to prevent injury through movement-based interventions.
View Suzanne's research outputs on her University of Newcastle profile >

 

Profile

Professor Suzanne Snodgrass is a registered physiotherapist, educator, and researcher in movement control, pain and rehabilitation.

She holds a number of concurrent leadership roles including Head of the Physiotherapy Discipline at the University of Newcastle and Director of the Biomechanics and Exercise Testing Laboratory at Newcastle’s Callaghan campus. Professor Snodgrass’ research program aims to address gaps in our understanding of pain, movement and balance dysfunction, and discover new ways to treat movement dysfunction through exercise and physical activity.

Professor Snodgrass leads the Biomechanics and Exercise Testing Laboratory, bringing together researchers from physiotherapy, exercise science, neuroscience, imaging, psychology, physical education and population health, with state-of-the-art infrastructure for biomechanics/motion capture, postural sway/balance, fNIRS, muscle strength and cardiopulmonary exercise testing. The Snodgrass laboratory is transcending professional boundaries, uniting diverse disciplines for the collision of ideas to innovate and discover solutions to longstanding problems.

 

Research Impact

Professor Snodgrass’ research drives practice change. Her pivotal trials and reviews impact clinicians through professional development programs promoted by international health professional bodies.

Harnessing the power of big data through international collaboration has led to discoveries of the effects of muscles and exercise on pain and function. Professor Snodgrass has published over 127 papers with over 3200 citations (Google Scholar), work that has been instrumental in physiotherapy practice, specifically the delivery and effectiveness of interventions for neck/back pain, the leading cause of years lived with disability.

Professor Snodgrass’ research has international impact on clinical practice in physiotherapy. Her trials of physiotherapy interventions have immediate and urgent relevance to practice; American Physical Therapy Association selected two trials for clinicians to read for continuing professional development credits promoted to >143,000 clinician readers of the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT). Professor Snodgrass’ established international collaborations include world leaders in muscle, brain, pain and movement at Stanford, Duke, Tufts, Nebraska at Omaha, NTU Singapore, and the Universities of Canberra and Sydney.

Professor Snodgrass is an effective and enthusiastic mentor to the next generation of researchers. She has supervised 28 postgraduate research students including 25 PhDs, and 55 Honours students, the majority of these as principal supervisor. Her PhD graduates have secured prestigious research, academic or clinical positions, and have success in their own research careers. Professor Snodgrass was awarded the University of Newcastle Award for Research Supervision Excellence in 2022., Professor Snodgrass is committed to building research capacity across multiple disciplines through mentoring and by working with clinician researchers to undertake practice-based research.

 

What are you working on?

My main research activity currently focuses on strategies to identify age-related balance decline in adults younger than 65, and to promote physical activity and exercise interventions to improve balance, prevent falls and slow the ageing process. I also work on projects to identify movement-related injury risk factors in athletes and people with pain conditions, and to develop and evaluate interventions to address these risk factors.

Over the past 20 years, I have worked in a teaching and research capacity, following 10 years in clinical practice as a musculoskeletal and sports physiotherapist and certified athletic trainer.

I have specific experience in the use of exercise-based muscle retraining for people and athletes with pain, movement or balance problems. I assess movement problems using laboratory measures of human movement such as 3D motion capture, force sensors, and monitoring brain and muscle activity during movement.

 

Future Focus

My research is currently focussed on developing strategies for more effective assessment of balance to enable early identification of balance problems and falls risk in middle age. This will support the promotion of physical activity interventions for middle age to reduce falls risk and prevent age-related health decline.

Ultimately, I want people to be empowered to use exercise to help slow the ageing process and reduce the number of people who are dependent on others for help as they get older, or at least delaying the need for help for an extra decade or so.

 

Specialised/Technical Skills

  • 3D measurement of human movement, including balance, measured with motion capture technology
  • Injury prediction in sports, falls and ageing
  • Muscle composition and brain structure and function using MRI and fNIRS
  • Trials of physiotherapy, exercise and manual therapy interventions embedded in clinical practice

 

Affiliations

  • Australian Physiotherapy Association
  • Sports Medicine Australia
  • Council of Physiotherapy Deans of Australia and New Zealand

 

Why did you get into research?

Early in my career, I spent 10 years working as a physiotherapist in private practice and sports physiotherapy, which motivated me to empower my patients to look after their own health and heath problems. This led me to want to better understand the underlying causes of health problems, so that I could give patients successful strategies to manage them.

I now want to take everything I’ve learned and apply it to bringing better balance to our populations – working on strategies that can start while we are younger to ensure less falls and instability as we age.

Why did you get into research?

Early in my career, I spent 10 years working as a physiotherapist in private practice and sports physiotherapy, which motivated me to empower my patients to look after their own health and heath problems. This led me to want to better understand the underlying causes of health problems, so that I could give patients successful strategies to manage them.

I now want to take everything I’ve learned and apply it to bringing better balance to our populations – working on strategies that can start while we are younger to ensure less falls and instability as we age.