Physical Therapists

Shefali Christopher, PT, DPT

Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Sports Physical Therapy

Dr. Christopher is an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy Education at Elon University. She was recently invited to give the keynote presentation at the UVA running medicine 2019 conference where she spoke about pelvic floor dysfunction in the runner. In addition to evaluating and treating Elon athletes, she is a physical therapist for the USA paratriathlon team and has worked at the World Paratriathlon Championship in Iseo, Italy.

Dr. Christopher has recently enjoyed helping postpartum athletes return to their sport safely and is researching pain risk factors and characteristics in postpartum runners as her PhD study plan.

Jonathan Goodwin, PT, DPT, PhD

Dr. Goodwin is an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy Education at Elon University. Dr. Goodwin’s passion is treating and working with runners in both the clinical and research setting. As a past D-I collegiate runner, he is able to provide a realistic perspective to training and recovery. His research is focused on how runners mitigate load during running and hopping, namely through analyzing lower extremity stiffness. He completed his dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looking at neuromechanical contributions to lower extremity stiffness in healthy runners.
Currently, he is collecting data on athletes across different sports (basketball, soccer, football, etc.) to determine if/how their lower extremity stiffness values differ from running athletes. Additionally, he is using musculoskeletal ultrasound to analyze differences in Achilles tendon characteristics in healthy runners. Ideally, advances along these research lines will lead to improved understanding of tissue and joint mechanics that lead to increased injury risk in runners.

Mary Kay Hannah, PT, DPT

Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Orthopaedic Physical Therapy

Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Sports Physical Therapy

Dr. Hannah has been a physical therapist since 2001 when she served as an active duty Army officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, and Afghanistan.  Following retirement from the Army, she cared for patients at her orthopedic and sports practice in Apex, NC.  She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy Education program at Elon University where she teaches clinical reasoning and evaluation and treatment of the spine. She also teaches dry needling as continuing education for physical therapists and works on research regarding dry needling.

In addition to evaluating and treating Elon athletes, September will mark Dr. Hannah’s fifth year serving as a physical therapist for the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh, NC.