Dr. Gmuca is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a pediatric rheumatologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her Master of Science in clinical epidemiology. She is also an attending physician and medical director of the Center for Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome at CHOP and a core faculty member in both the PolicyLab and Clinical Futures, a CHOP Research Institute Center of Excellence at CHOP. She is also a Senior Scholar at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gmuca seeks to promote, conduct, and disseminate research aimed at improving understanding of the etiologic factors important in the development of chronic non-inflammatory musculoskeletal pain syndromes as well as advance the interdisciplinary treatment strategies for amplified pain to positively impact the lives of youth with chronic pain and their families. With funding from a K23 from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and previous funding from the Rheumatology Research Foundation, her team is conducting a pilot randomized controlled trial of a resilience coaching program for youth with chronic musculoskeletal pain.