Manuela Ferreira

Professor Ferreira is NHMRC Investigator Fellow, Professor of Musculoskeletal Health and Program Head, Musculoskeletal Health, at The George Institute for Global Health, where she conducts research on the mechanisms, prognosis and management of musculoskeletal disorders with a focus on low back pain. Before joining The George Institute, she was Professor of Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney, where she was inaugural chair of the Musculoskeletal Priority Research Area (+80 researchers) at the Kolling Institute, and co-chair of the Musculoskeletal Clinical Advisory Group of Sydney Health Partners (an NHMRC, Sydney University and health district research translation partnership). With +320 scientific publications, and +AUD30M in research funding, she is the 2nd highest ranked researcher in the world for ‘low back pain’ (of a total of 33,000 authors worldwide – Expertscape). She currently leads multiple randomised controlled trials of musculoskeletal interventions, including the first placebo randomised controlled trial of spinal surgery, an NHMRC-funded study that will establish the efficacy of decompressive surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis.