Bioastronautics at Hopkins Mini Symposium: Multi-System Resilience in Human Spaceflight

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. 

Dr. Jennifer Rochlis has spent her career bridging cutting-edge science with human-centered systems, bringing that synergistic lens to spaceflight, emerging technologies, and leadership development.  She is the co-founder, President and CEO of Advancing Frontiers, Inc., a consulting company providing human systems and spaceflight integration services.  Previously, she was Vice President for Products and Chief of Solution Architecture at Teledyne FLIR.  During her 20-year tenure at NASA, she served as Division Chief in the Human Health and Performance Directorate, Branch Chief in the Engineering Directorate, and Associate Director of Human Resources.  

Dr. Rochlis holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  She has authored numerous publications on human-machine interfaces, artificial Intelligence, telerobotics, bioastronautics, and is the author of the agency-wide NASA Human Systems Integration Practitioner’s Guide.  She is an active STEM career mentor, a member of the American Society for Artificial Intelligence (ASFAI), serves on the advisory board of the Women’s Aerospace Network, and is co-founder and board chair of the Organization for Space Medicine, Engineering and Design (OSMED), a nonprofit advancing integrative approaches to human spaceflight. She also runs a private integrative coaching practice, supporting individuals and teams in aligning personal and professional advancement.  

Dr. Queale is a board certified internal medicine physician specializing in primary care. His passion is helping his patients maintain high levels of functional capacity throughout their lifespan while simultaneously mitigating the risk of acute injuries and illnesses requiring hospital care. 

Dr Queale received his bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from the University of Delaware and practiced sports physical therapy for three years while obtaining a master’s degree in exercise science. He went on to receive his Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins. He then completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in general internal medicine at Hopkins where he received a second master’s degree in injury epidemiology. His research interest was in the application of epidemiology principles to prevent sports injuries.

During his fellowship, Dr. Queale worked with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) helping to redesign their Injury Surveillance System. He also served on the US Soccer Federation and US Lacrosse Sports Science and Safety committees where he helped develop policies to reduce the risk of injuries and illnesses through environmental modifications, screening and training programs, and design of protective equipment. He was also a team physician for Division 1 Johns Hopkins Men’s Lacrosse, and he traveled internationally as a team physician for several United States Soccer Federation National Teams. During this time. he also worked as a staff physician in the emergency department of a local community hospital.

Dr. Queale went on to serve as an advisor to several large healthcare organizations where he helped create value-based care programs to improve clinical outcomes for patients and reduce cost total cost of care to payors. This included an occupational health program to reduce workplace injuries and illness and a novel community health program to improve individual and community resilience to prevent hospital readmissions. During this time, Dr. Queale also served on the board of directors of an inpatient medical facility where he was chair of their board compliance, quality and safety committee and a member of the board finance committee.

Dr. Queale has been in private practice for over 20 years providing primary care services to high performing individual of all ages. He is also the founder of Negentex Systems Medicine, an organization created to design, implement and scale a new systems-based primary care model. His goal is to help co-create a new technology-enabled, individualized, longitudinal model of care to improve multiscale system resilience and mitigate the risk of adverse medical events for high performing individuals on Earth and in space..