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 in 2001. She interned and worked at various NASA Centers in life sciences and served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer (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) in 2015, and is board-certified in both specialties.
Dr. Chough has spent her career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as a contract 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 operational education of future Aerospace Medicine specialists.
Affiliations
- Aerospace Medical Association
- American Academy of Emergency Medicine
- Academy of Wilderness Medicine
- Society of NASA Flight Surgeons
- Space Medicine Association
- National Ski Patrol