Erik Antonsen, MD, PhD

Treasurer

Dr. Erik Antonsen has focused his career at the intersection of medicine and engineering for human spaceflight.  He is the CTO of Advancing Frontiers, a consulting company providing spaceflight integration services.  Prior to that he worked in many roles across industry, academia, and government.  At NASA he was the Element Scientist for Exploration Medical Capabilities in the NASA Human Research Program from 2015-2018 where he led the research element in developing systems medicine approaches to designing medical systems.  Following that he was the Assistant Director for Human System Risk Management in the Human Health and Performance Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center from 2018-2021 where he was responsible for chairing the NASA Human System Risk Board and working with human spaceflight programs to prioritize research and operational investments that protect human health and performance in space.  

From 2013 to 2024 he was faculty at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas as Associate Professor of Space Medicine and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, both with tenure.  In 2024 he moved his academic work to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA, Harvard Medical School, and started lecturing for the AeroAstro Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He was a co-founder of ADE Aerospace Consulting and ADE Medical, two companies that provided engineering and medical support to the world record breaking StratEx mission in 2014.  His educational background includes BS, MS, and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering and he is currently practicing emergency medicine in Houston, Texas and Boston, MA.  He continues to do research developing advanced risk assessment and analysis capabilities for space medicine, AI in medicine, and space health systems design.