Institution: Duke University (House Course) | Partner: Baylor College of Medicine, TRISH | Dates: Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 | Duration: 12 weeks | Prerequisites: None
In January 2020, I set out to build a course on space medicine at Duke. Duke allows undergraduates to submit a syllabus and teach a House Course on any subject, with one restriction: no prerequisites. As someone whose medical training at the time was limited to EMT certification, I assembled a team of collaborators to make the course rigorous and accessible.
Course Structure
The course is structured as 12 weeks of education across two halves:
First Half — Foundations:
- History of aerospace medicine and the evolution from NACA to NASA
- Astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth
- Human anatomy and physiology as it relates to extreme environments
- The unique hazards of aerospace and space travel
Second Half — Systems and Applications:
- Cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and neurological responses to microgravity
- Radiation biology and countermeasures
- Behavioral health and the psychology of isolation
- Current research frontiers in bioastronautics
Guest Lecturers
This course would not have been possible without collaborators from across the field. Physicians, astronauts, and astrobiology researchers from institutions worldwide contributed lectures, bringing real-world perspectives that no textbook could replicate.
From Classroom to Online Platform
The course materials were subsequently hosted online through Baylor College of Medicine’s Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) in partnership with Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). This transition expanded the audience from a single Duke undergraduate classroom to a global online community.
All lecture materials are publicly available on the TRISH Orbit Platform.
Origin Story
The idea for this course started on a drive from San Francisco to Houston, when I was heading to work at Johnson Space Center in the Spacecraft and Software Engineering Branch. Home to NASA’s Mission Control, the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, and NASA’s astronauts, Houston is where space health research happens. I wanted to bring that world back to Duke’s campus and make it available to any student curious enough to sign up.