Biography

Dr. Robert Reynolds is a data scientist and spaceflight epidemiologist focused on understanding and mitigating health risks in human spaceflight. At NASA’s Johnson Space Center, he supports the Human Health and Performance Directorate by applying statistical modeling, systems thinking, machine learning, and network science to inform decisions about astronaut health and mission readiness. He also serves as an Associate Professor of Aerospace Medicine (volunteer faculty) at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.

His research spans several domains. One area of focus is the long-term health outcomes of highly selected working populations—astronauts, professional athletes, and other elite cohorts—where selection effects, survivorship bias, and physiological extremes challenge conventional epidemiologic approaches. He also develops methods for life expectancy estimation, particularly for individuals with disabilities and chronic medical conditions.

Dr. Reynolds specializes in occupational epidemiology, causal inference, and network science, with a focus on risk modeling in extreme and complex environments. He is also a Consulting Research Scientist with Mortality Research & Consulting, Inc.

Prior to his work in spaceflight, Dr. Reynolds led analytics teams in the commercial healthcare sector and held research positions within the University of Arizona, University of California, and University of Texas systems. He holds a PhD in Epidemiology, an MS in Statistics (with an emphasis in Biostatistics), and an MPH in Epidemiology. He is also an Accredited Professional Statistician (PStat®) through the American Statistical Association. Dr. Reynolds frequently serves as an expert witness on epidemiologic and biostatistical matters, including life expectancy, causation analysis, and related issues.