Year Honored: 2023

Biography

Dr. Lynn Snyder-Mackler is a world renowned physical therapist and sports medicine researcher, and a driving force behind the University of Delaware’s Physical Therapy graduate program growing to the #1 ranked program in the country. Whether it’s at the Olympics or with Hall of Fame athletes, or sports teams around the world, Lynn’s renown has shone a light on Delaware.

Lynn was raised in Connecticut and was the first in her family to attend college when admitted to the Johns Hopkins University. She played lacrosse and other sports and also began her work in sports medicine as a student athletic trainer, developing a passion for the intersection of science and athletics – one that would spawn a groundbreaking career.

Lynn received degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where she met a fellow PT student and her future husband: Scott Mackler. She began her career as a clinical physical therapist, but due to her persistent curiosity and interest in finding answers, she quickly found her passion in clinical research. They moved with their young sons to Boston, where Lynn was a professor and completed her doctorate at Boston University studying a pathology that would drive her entire career, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, while Scott was a medical resident. In 1989 they moved their family to Newark so Lynn could join UD’s Physical Therapy Department.

During more than 30 years at the University of Delaware, Lynn and her colleagues grew the Physical Therapy Department to the top-ranked program in the country. This leap in global recognition for UDPT was due in part to Lynn’s hard work in growing the exemplary UDPT clinic and success in securing millions of dollars in federal research funding as she become the premier prevention and rehabilitation expert for ACL injuries.

On a national and global scale, Lynn’s pioneering research has changed the way we think about ACL injury prevention and rehabilitation. In some of her most important work, she identified that not all who tear ACLs needed surgery to continue their sports activity. Through progressive rehabilitation, these “copers” can stabilize themselves after an ACL injury without undergoing surgery. Since identifying these types of patients, Lynn has focused her work on identifying what distinguishes copers and non-copers soon after their injuries in order to help prevent further ACL injury, delay the need for immediate surgery, accelerate the recovery time post-injury, and make it less likely that the individuals will re-injure themselves.

Lynn became one of the most highly sought-after physical therapists in the world – attending to Hall of famers and Olympians in the US and abroad – which greatly contributed to UDPT’s, and Delaware’s, profile. As the world’s expert in ACL rehabilitation, Dr. Snyder-Mackler has also been called on numerous times to help some of the world’s best athletes accelerate their recoveries. In Boston, she helped rehabilitate NBA players. She was asked to be the Chief Athletic Trainer for Beach Volleyball at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA. She helped rehabilitate and counsel countless Philadelphia-area professional and amateur athletes. For years, she spent significant time in Italy working with the premier sports rehabilitation clinic. Athletes continued to rely on her counsel well after rehabilitation completed. This past year, as a reflection of her accomplishments and the fact that she is still at the pinnacle of her profession, the NFL asked her to be one of the experts on the NFL Scientific Advisory Committee.

At the same time she was working with international stars, Dr. Snyder-Mackler also dedicated a large amount of rime to treating and rehabilitating high school and college athletes in Delaware. Athletes, coaches, and their families knew if you had a knee injury, you needed to go see Lynn.

Since moving to Delaware in 1989, Lynn as immersed herself in the local community by volunteering her time and effort to help improve the lives of those around her. In an intersection of life with public service, she became a tireless advocate to families of patients with ALS as Scott fought the disease for 15 years until his death in 2013. She continues to work with families facing the challenges of ACL/MND around the world. Lynn has sat on the board of numerous organizations including the Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund, University of Delaware Hillel, and the Governor’s Council on Lifestyles and Fitness. At the University of Delaware, she was a longstanding member of the Faculty Board on Athletics, which she chaired as NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative for fifteen years. She continues to serve as a member of the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee of the DIAA, a committee that was chaired by her husband, Dr. Michael Axe, a renowned orthopedic surgeon with whom she has written 70 scientific articles on the ACL and youth sports injury and prevention.

Dr. Snyder-Mackler has earned countless awards and grants in her field, bringing more prestige and research funding to the University of Delaware. In 2015, the American Physical Therapy Association bestowed upon her the highest honor in the profession: the Mary McMillan Lecture Award. In 2009, UD conferred its top honor, the Francis Alison Award, to Lynn – making only the third time ever that a woman received the award. And in 2008, after being continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over a decade, she was conferred a prestigious MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award. The MERIT award was designed to provide stable, long-term funding support to outstanding, experienced investigators, whose productivity is distinctly superior, and who are deemed highly likely to continue to perform their research activities in an outstanding manner.