Thesis from Shefali Christopher receives top honors

Christopher was invited as the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Running Medicine Conference in 2019 and the Mountain Land Running Summit Conference in 2021

When the University of Newcastle, Australia was asked by the editor of the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales to select the top three Ph.D. theses from the previous 12 months from any discipline, Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy Shefali Christopher was selected for this honor.

Jennifer StGeorge, senior lecturer in health sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia, said of Christopher’s thesis, “[The] thesis was an excellent contribution and highly regarded by the examiners.”

Christopher’s thesis, “Risk factors for running-related pain after childbirth,” received many honors and awards. Of the eight total chapters, including the introduction, literature review and conclusion, five chapters were published in peer-reviewed journals which were either high-impact journals or content-specific journals. In addition, Christopher was invited to contribute to two expert opinions articles that were also published, one in a high-impact journal (Journal of Sports Physical Therapy). Each chapter was presented at national-level conferences as either a poster or a platform presentation. She was the University of Newcastle, Australia three-minute thesis winner for the School of Health Sciences.

As a result of her work, she was invited as the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Running Medicine Conference in 2019, the Mountain Land Running Summit Conference in 2021 and has spoken on the topic of the female athlete at each annual national meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association’s Combined sections meeting.

Her H-index is five and her research gate score is 24.58. Her thesis chapter three has received 6.67 citations per ear and chapter four has 3.5 citations a year. In addition, three other articles/chapters have 1.3 citations a year.