NASA astronaut Anil Menon’s intriguing academic history

Hyderabad: Indian-origin doctor Anil Menon has been making headlines after he was selected along with nine others to be astronauts for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s future space missions. Meaning he could be on the flight to the Moon someday.  He reports for duty in January 2022. Menon was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping […]

Hyderabad: Indian-origin doctor Anil Menon has been making headlines after he was selected along with nine others to be astronauts for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s future space missions. Meaning he could be on the flight to the Moon someday.  He reports for duty in January 2022.

Menon was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch its first humans to space during the Demo-2 mission and building a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions. Prior, he served NASA as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions on the International Space Station.

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Menon, born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, is an actively practicing emergency medicine physician with fellowship training in wilderness and aerospace medicine. He is married to Anna Menon who works at SpaceX, and they have two children. As a physician, the 45-year-old was the first responder during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, and the 2011 Reno Air Show accident. In the U.S. Air Force, Lt. Col. Menon supports the 45th Space Wing as a flight surgeon and supported the 173rd Fighter Wing where he logged over 100 sorties in the F-15 and transported over 100 patients as part of the critical care air transport team.

What is Anil Menon’s academic background?

As per his NASA profile, Menon graduated from Saint Paul Academy and Summit School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1995. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Neurobiology from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1999. Here, he conducted research on Huntington’s disease.

Menon has a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, in 2004. Menon also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support Polio vaccination.

He pursued Doctor of Medicine from Stanford Medical School in 2006. He did his Residency in Emergency Medicine at Stanford University in 2009. His intriguing educational background also includes a fellowship in Wilderness Medicine from Stanford University in 2010. Following his residency, he deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom and worked for the Himalayan Rescue Association to care for climbers on Mount Everest.

He then did a Residency in Aerospace Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 2012. Menon also has a Master’s in Public Health from UTMB-Galveston in the year 2012. He has a current board certification in aerospace medicine and emergency medicine. During his aerospace training, he was deployed twice with the U.S. Air Force critical care air transport team to treat and transport wounded warriors. He later transferred to the Air Force reserves, 45th operational group, Detachment 3 of the 45th Space Wing to provide medical direction for launch and landings.

In 2018, Menon joined SpaceX where he started its medical program and helped prepare for the company’s first human flights.

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