Board of Directors

Dr Mitchell is a board-certified neurological surgeon specializing in spinal surgery. He is part of a private multi-specialty practice providing comprehensive spinal care in New Jersey. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, medical degree at the University of Southern California, and residency training in neurological surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was awarded the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Spinal Clinical Fellowship at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Professional society membership includes the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, American Medical Association, Congress of Neurological Surgeons and North American Spine Society. He has contributed in the areas of coding, reimbursement, education and health policy. He served as the program chair for the NASS Annual Meeting (2008), as the Health Policy Co-Chair (2010-2012), and section development chair (2012-2015). He is currently NASS’ Administration & Development Council Director.

Christopher Kauffman is a Nashville area orthopedic spine surgeon in private practice, Hughston Clinic Orthopaedics. Prior to that, Dr. Kauffman was in full time academic practice at UCSD. His experience in both the academic and private sectors give a solid foundation on understanding the clinical and practice management aspects of a surgical practice. Dr Kauffman is currently NASS’ Administration Council Chair. Dr. Kauffman has previously volunteered for NASS for many years on the Coding, Payor Policy and Coverage committees and has previously served as Health Policy Director. He has been involved with all aspects of NASS efforts regarding health policy as it relates to spine care and has represented NASS to CMS, AMA and multiple payors. Dr. Kauffman is also the NASS representative at the AAOS Coding, Coverage and Reimbursement Committee.

Dr. Hilibrand is the Joseph and Marie Field Professor of Spinal Surgery and serves as the Vice Chairman of Academic Affairs and Faculty Development for the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Sidney Kimmel Medical College / Thomas Jefferson University and Rothman Orthopaedics in Philadelphia. He is also the Director of the Rothman Spine Fellowship, a Professor of Neurological Surgery, and Director of Orthopaedic Medical Education. He has authored or co-authored more than 500articles in peer-reviewed journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association. He recently served as Treasurer of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and is a Past-President of the Cervical Spine Research Society. He earned his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA and his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT. He completed his Orthopedic Surgery training at The University of Michigan Hospitals in Ann Arbor, and a fellowship in spinal surgery at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland under Dr Henry Bohlman.

Edwin M. Todd/Trent H. Wells, Jr. Professor of Neurosurgery; Professor of Neurological Surgery, Department of Neurological Surgery and USC Spine Center at USC Keck Medical Center

D.J. Kennedy, MD, is a professor and Chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where his practice focuses on nonoperative and interventional spine. He completed his residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Washington in Seattle where he served as Chief Resident, and then a Spine and Sports Fellowship at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. His research has focused on the safety and efficacy of interventional spine procedures. He has pioneered safe injection techniques and is an internationally recognized expert in interventional spine procedures. He has been the recipient of numerous research grants and he has published over 200 journal articles, abstracts and book chapters. As a spine researcher, he has publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and he is a frequent publisher in Pain Medicine, PM&R, and The Spine Journal (TSJ). He has won multiple research awards from TSJ, the International Pain & Spine Intervention Society (IPSIS) and NASS. Additionally, he is a prolific lecturer and teacher. He has given more than 160 national and international invited lectures, and numerous local presentations and invited grand rounds. He has won multiple teaching awards, including teacher of the year from Stanford University. He is currently a Deputy Editor for TSJ, and on the Editorial Board for Interventional Pain Medicine. In 2020 he served as the Co-Chair for the NASS annual meeting. He joined NASS Board of Directors in 2020 as an At-Large Member, before chairing the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee. Currently he serves as Strategic Growth Council Director on the NASS Board of Directors. Dr. Kennedy is also the current President for the American Academy of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (AAPM&R), and he is the immediate past-president of IPSIS.

Dr. Fehlings is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Co-Director of the Spine Program at the University of Toronto, and Head of the Spinal Program at Toronto Western Hospital. He combines an active clinical practice in complex spinal surgery with a translationally oriented research program focused on discovering novel treatments for the injured brain and spinal cord. He has published over 800 peer-reviewed articles (h-index 85) chiefly in the area of central nervous system injury and complex spinal surgery. Dr. Fehlings has held a number of prominent leadership roles, including being the current Chair of the AOSpine International Spinal Cord Injury Knowledge Forum, President of the International Neurotrauma Society, past President of the Cervical Spine Research Society, and leader of several international clinical research trials. Dr. Fehlings has been a member of NASS since 2005, and the society has recognized his work with the Leon Wiltse Award (2006) and Henry Farfan Award (2013). Further, Dr. Fehlings’ team has received numerous best paper awards from NASS over the years. In 2009 Dr. Fehlings received the prestigious Olivecrona Award -- the top international award for neurosurgeons and neuroscientists (Karolinska Institutet), and in 2016 his commitment to education and mentorship was recognized with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Mentor of the Year Award.

Dr. Hwang currently specializes in pediatric spinal deformity at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia where he is the director of neurosurgical spine. He is an adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania and has an appointment at Temple University. He has been an active NASS member since 2009 and acted previously as chair of the clinical practice guideline committee as well as served on the membership, coverage, PPRC, and EBM committees. He has served on the NASS board of directors since 2021 and is actively involved with other organizations such as SRS and AANS. He has co-authored over 25 book chapters and 140 peer-reviewed articles to date with Shriner’s grant funding.

Dr. Andrew Schoenfeld is currently an Associate Professor and clinician scientist in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the Director of Spine Surgical Research. He was previously the Director of the Surgical Research Fellowship at the Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the TH Chan Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Schoenfeld is a graduate of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and the University of Michigan. He completed spine surgery fellowship training at the combined program at Massachusetts General Hospital/ Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He subsequently underwent additional training in health services research as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan. Dr. Schoenfeld has published more than 250 papers in the scientific literature and edited three textbooks. His research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation and the Department of Defense. Dr. Schoenfeld has been actively engaged in scholarly publishing since 2009 and has been a Deputy Editor at one or more academic journals since 2014. He has served as a Deputy Editor at Spine, The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and The Spine Journal (TSJ). He was also previously a Section Editor at the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma. Dr. Schoenfeld’s research has received national awards from the Mid- America Orthopaedic Association, the Academic Surgical Congress and the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine. His work has also received the prestigious NASS-TSJ Outstanding Paper Award in four consecutive years (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). He has previously served NASS through work on the CME Committee, Nominating Committee and the Oncology Committee. He is currently Chair of the Resident and Fellow Education Committee and the NASS representative to the AAOS Fellowship Match Committee. He was a program co-chair for the 2021 NASS Annual Meeting. He currently serves on the NASS Board of Directors as an At Large Member.

Karin Swartz, MD is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin as well as Assistant Dean for Continuing Professional Development. Additionally, she is the Chief of Neurosurgery at the Zablocki VA Medical Center. She has been active in NASS since joining in 2008, especially in the Coding Committee and Health Policy Committee. Dr Swartz is NASS' Physician Advisor to the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), advocating for appropriate reimbursement for our services. In 2019 she joined the NASS Board of Directors as the Chair of Section Development and in the end of 2023, became the Council Director for Health Policy & Advocacy. Dr Swartz was the Co-Chair for NASS' 2022 Annual Meeting. She is a Deputy Editor for The Spine Journal and is a Section Editor for Spine and for Education for World Neurosurgery.

Dr. Sandeep Gidvani is an orthopedic spine surgeon in private practice at OrthoNorCal in Los Gatos, California. He serves as the Chair of the Department of Orthopaedics at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, CA and the Chair of Surgery at St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, CA. Dr. Gidvani serves as the Director of Education in Orthopaedics through a comanagement program with El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos, CA. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with Honors in Bioengineering and received his medical degree from New York Medical College. Dr. Gidvani completed his orthopedic residency training at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and served as the Chief Resident during his final year. He then went on to complete a fellowship at UCLA Spine Surgery Center in Santa Monica, CA under the tutelage of Jeffrey Wang, MD. Dr. Gidvani is an active member in both NASS and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons where he serves on multiple committees. He has a sincere passion for the improvement of spine education at all training levels including residency, fellowship, and allied health and has strived to make a difference on a domestic and international scale. Given Dr. Gidvani’s background in bioengineering he also has a keen interest in optimizing the adoption of current technologies to improve the delivery and quality of spine care. Outside of medicine, Dr. Gidvani enjoys spending time with his two young daughters aged almost 2 years and 3 months. His wife has opened his eyes to the world of travel and various cuisines. Dr. Gidvani achieves a work-life balance by playing basketball on the weekends, working out, and swimming in his brother’s backyard pool.

Roger Hartl, M.D., is the Hansen-MacDonald Professor of Neurological Surgery and Director of Spinal Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as Neurosurgical Director, Och Spine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He is also the founder and director of Och Spine at NewYork-Presbyterian at the Weill Cornell Medicine Center for Comprehensive Spine Care as well as Weill Cornell Medicine's Global Neurosurgery Initiative in Tanzania (for which he was named AANS Humanitarian of the Year for 2022).

Eric J. Muehlbauer, MJ, CAE has been Executive Director since September 1994. He became a Certified Association Executive in 2002. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Knox College where he was the Hunter Trophy winner (highest GPA of athletes) and hold the record for most career punt returns. He also has Masters of Jurisprudence in Health Law & Policy from Loyola University Chicago Law School. He has done additional coursework on Strategic Perspectives in Non-profit Management at the Harvard University School of Business. NASS has become a well-respected voice in the health policy field and a leader in the areas of Ethics and Hands-on Education through use of its Spine Education and Research Center. He is a member of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics (ASLME) and the American Association of Medical Society Executives (AAMSE).