WISE and Shine offers an informal opportunity to ask questions, hear about life in industry, and explore the unconventional places a degree in can take you while enjoying a light dinner. Join us for an evening with NASA Flight Surgeon, Dr. Natacha Chough!
Dr. Natacha Chough (Nuh-TOSH-uh CHO) was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and
earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Washington (2001). She interned and worked at
various NASA centers in life sciences and served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in
Turkmenistan (2003-2005) prior to obtaining her M.D. at the University of Michigan (2010). After
medical school, she completed Emergency Medicine residency at Stanford (2013), followed by
Aerospace Medicine residency at the University of Texas-Medical Branch (UTMB) (2015), and
is board-certified in both specialties. She is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, the
American Academy of Emergency Medicine, and the Academy of Wilderness Medicine.
Dr. Chough has spent her career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as a Flight Surgeon – in
other words, one of the team physicians who provides ground medical support for astronauts
before, during, and after their spaceflights. She has served as the Flight Surgeon for 5 prior
International Space Station (ISS) missions, including Axiom-1, the first all-private astronaut crew
to the ISS. In 2022, she joined the core faculty of UTMB’s Aerospace Medicine Division and is
thrilled to support the education of future Aerospace Medicine specialists.
