Dr. Michael Schmidt has recently joined the Mackey-White Health and Safety Committee of the NFL Player’s Association (NFLPA).  The Mackey-White Committee was established by the NFLPA to: “Advance important issues concerning the overall health and wellness of current, former, and future NFL players. Topics include ongoing research efforts, evidence-based improvements to player health care, and next steps for continuing their ongoing mission of progressing player wellness.”

Dr. Schmidt’s work in human performance, health, and safety spans a continuum of human spaceflight, elite athletics, humans in extreme operating environments, military operations, and clinical medicine.  Insights gained from any individual domain of these unique operating environments are used to inform applications to other individual domains.  This ‘translational’ methodology is focused on how complex molecular networks impact the physiologic and performance phenotype, with a further focus on health and safety.  Assessment of such phenotypes is coupled with a constant focus on finding actionable countermeasures (interventions, solutions) in the short- and long-term.  Dr. Schmidt’s approach will bring an additional perspective to the health and safety challenges unique to the needs of the NFLPA member athletes.