Dr. Kris Lehnhardt leads the advancement of current and future space medicine initiatives at UTHealth Houston. In addition to his appointment as Director of Space Medicine, Lehnhardt is a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at McGovern Medical School. He joined McGovern Medical School from Baylor College of Medicine, where he held joint appointments in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Center for Space Medicine.

Additionally, Dr. Lehnhardt is an adjunct professor at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, where he has served as the chair of the Human Performance in Space Department at the Space Studies Program on multiple occasions. From 2018 to 2024, Lehnhardt served as Element Scientist for the Exploration Medical Capability element of the NASA Human Research Program. In his role, he provided medical and scientific leadership, guidance, expertise, and oversight to clinicians, scientists, and engineers who design future NASA medical systems for human space exploration.

Additionally, he served as a medical officer in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center 2022 to 2024 and completed a one-month rotation as the NASA medical officer at the McMurdo Station medical clinic in Antarctica. A well-respected physician-scientist in the field of space medicine, Lehnhardt won the Aerospace Medical Association’s Eric Liljencrantz Award for excellence as an educator in aerospace medicine and the NASA Johnson Space Center Director’s Commendation Award in 2023. He was named a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians in 2014 and a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association in 2020.