Dr. Schaeffer is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia and a consultant gastrointestinal pathologist at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH). He led the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at VGH and UBC Hospital from 2017 to 2025. He is co-director of Pancreas Centre BC, holds the Pancreatic Cancer Research Chair at VGH, and is an Associate Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Research Centre.
Dr. Schaeffer has contributed to international consensus work on standardizing histologic assessment in ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, pouchitis, eosinophilic esophagitis and immune checkpoint inhibitor colitis. He has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, serves on the editorial board of Modern Pathology. His honours include the 2025 Jack Yardley Investigator Award from the Gastrointestinal Pathology Society and Crohn’s and Colitis Canada’s 2025 Physician of the Year award.
He received his medical degree from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, completed his anatomical pathology residency at UBC, and completed a gastrointestinal pathology fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
