Michael Munin earned an American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine research award

The American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) will honor Pitt School of Medicine Professor Michael Munin with its 2024 Distinguished Researcher Award. Munin teaches in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R), which did not exist as a standalone department when he arrived at Pitt in 1992 but was a division within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

“When I came to Pittsburgh, I think I was only the third PM&R attending in the division,” said Munin. “One of our goals was to build a nationally recognized PM&R department, and we were very successful in that work.”

Munin’s early research helped reshape clinical thinking around rehabilitation and mobility after joint replacement surgery. He and colleagues found patients had better outcomes when they started rehabilitation sooner after surgery than was commonly practiced at the time.

The professor has also made significant contributions to the field of laryngeal electromyography, a procedure that measures the electrical activity produced by the muscles of the voice box to help clinicians diagnose and treat voice disorders. His current research also includes assessing the effectiveness of using ultrasound to guide botulinum toxin injections in patients with spasticity.

“The AANEM’s Distinguished Researcher Award is a great honor to receive,” said Munin. “I always had an interest in research because there is much in medicine we don’t fully understand. Performing research that answers pertinent clinical questions was very important to me and was instilled by an early mentor and past AANEM member, Gerald J. Herbison.”

In addition to this research and teaching work, Munin serves as the vice chair for strategic planning and program development in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Pitt, and he is co-director of the EMG Labs at UPMC Presbyterian, Shadyside and Mercy hospitals.

Photography courtesy of UPMC