Dr. Shefner is Professor and Chair of Neurology at Upstate Medical University, and Director of the Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratory and the MDA/ALS Research and Treatment Center at University Hospital, in Syracuse, New York. He is trained in neurology and clinical neurophysiology, and has devoted his clinical and research efforts to ALS. He received a PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and was a NRSA Research Fellow from 1976 to 1979. He completed a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology and neuromuscular disease with the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. While at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Shefner directed the ALS Clinic and participated in multiple industry sponsored ALS clinical trials. Since moving to Syracuse, he established the multidisciplinary ALS clinic there, and continues to participate in both industry- and investigator-initiated clinical trials.

Dr. Shefner has also been active in the development of a physiological outcome measure in trials of ALS. This outcome measure, called Motor Unit Number Estimation (MUNE) has been used in studies of both animals and patients with ALS.