SpaceCom 2017

Dr. Erik Antonsen
Element Scientist for Exploration Medical Capabilities
NASA Johnson Space Center


Dr. Antonsen is currently the Element Scientist for Exploration Medical Capabilities at NASA Johnson Space Center since 2015. In this role he focuses on medical system conceptualization, design, and integration with future space vehicles. He is also an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Space Medicine at the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Clinically he works as an Attending Emergency Physician at Ben Taub General Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center in Houston, TX. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign focusing on spacecraft electric propulsion and working for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base. His post-doctoral engineering work was with the Center for Plasma Materials Interactions and focused on plasma light sources and extreme ultraviolet lithography. In 2007 he spent a year in Zambia doing HIV research as a Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar for the National Institutes of Health. He graduated medical school in 2009 and finished an Emergency Medicine residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency in 2013 at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. In 2012 and 2014 he supported the Red Bull Stratos Mission and was the Field Medical Director for the StratEx mission, both world-record breaking high altitude sky-dives. His interests focus on developing the connections between engineering and medicine to advance human spaceflight.

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