Dr. Donald Nixdorf graduated from the University of Alberta, Faculty of Dentistry in 1996. He then completed a residency in hospital dentistry with a Masters at The Ohio State University, Anesthesia fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Orofacial Pain fellowship at the University of Alberta, an internship within the Summer Institute in Clinical Dental Research at the University of Washington, and was a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford with Dr. Irene Tracey’s group at FMRIB. Recently he completed a Master of Science in Clinic Research, UMN School of Public Health, as a part of his NIH-funded K12 training program.
Dr. Nixdorf is an Associate Professor and past Graduate Program Director at the University of Minnesota in the Division of TMD & Orofacial Pain, adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology, Research Investigator in the HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research, the Deputy Director of the Midwest Region within the National Dental Practice-Based Research Network. Dr. Nixdorf is a Diplomate of the National Dental Board of Anesthesiology (NDBA) and the American Board of Orofacial Pain (ABOP). Furthermore, he is a past Chair of the Written Examination Council for the ABOP, current Director of the ABOP, member of the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association’s Medical Advisory Board, committee member revising Chapter 13 of International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD-III), and has been involved in the development of the DC/TMD via joint effort between the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Orofacial Pain special interest group and the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) RDC/TMD consortium.
Dr. Nixdorf’s clinical interests include the diagnosis and management of chronic TMD pain, headaches and neuropathic pain. His research is focused on the topic of persistent non-odontogenic “tooth” pain, looking at issues related to classification (e.g., consensus building), diagnosis (e.g., development of criteria, imaging, screening questionnaires), epidemiology, (e.g., determining predictive factors, assessing of impact), exploration of mechanisms (e.g., sensory testing, functional imaging), and treatment options.
