The research of Benjamin Levine, M.D., continues to climb new heights, its reach stretching from prominent athletic organizations to the summit of Mount Everest to the International Space Station.

Dr. Levine, Professor of Internal Medicine and founding Director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, a joint project of UT Southwestern and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, recently added to his prestigious accolades. He was awarded the American Astronautical Society’s 2024 Space Life Sciences Award for exceptional scientific leadership to ensure human health and performance for the benefit of spaceflight. In addition, the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) selected him for its 2025 Founders Award in recognition of his decades-long commitment to the Society and to the broader field of wilderness medicine through pioneering research, clinical leadership, education, and mentorship.

Dr. Levine said the Founders Award is especially meaningful, as the WMS has been a professional home since his residency days at Stanford University Medical Center.

“I was one of the very first members of this organization, founded when two emergency medicine doctors, the late Paul Auerbach and Ed Gehr, essentially started an entire field by writing the definitive textbook about the specialty,” he said.

Dr. Levine and his team at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine testing a volunteer in a lower body negative pressure chamber, which is used to reproduce the effect of gravity on the body’s circulation.

Dr. Levine’s research focuses on the connection between exercise and heart health as well as the effects of space travel on the human body. A renowned sports cardiologist, he works with some of the world’s most elite athletic organizations – the NFL, NHL, NCAA, USA Track and Field, and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee – and also consults with NASA and SpaceX to solve cardiovascular medical problems related to spaceflight.

After earning his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Levine completed an internship and residency training in internal medicine at Stanford. He studied high altitude illness in the mountains of Japan as a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar and then worked at the Himalayan Rescue Association in Nepal before coming to UT Southwestern for a cardiology fellowship, where he trained under renowned cardiovascular physiologists Gunnar Blomqvist, M.D., Ph.D., and Jere Mitchell, M.D. Now deceased, both were Professors of Internal Medicine at UTSW.

Dr. Levine joined the UTSW faculty in 1990.

“UT Southwestern is an extraordinary place. My mentors here, including Drs. Blomqvist and Mitchell, were the key guiding lights for me and always supported my sometimes ‘off center’ endeavors,” he said. “But that’s the thing about UT Southwestern – if you have a good idea, and engage in it with passion and commitment, everyone at the institution will fight for you to help you accomplish your goals. The motto of ‘your success is my success’ permeates the institution and is one key reason why it has been so successful.”

Dr. Levine has served as a co-investigator on four Spacelab missions and as Principal Investigator of a large cardiovascular experiment on the International Space Station (ISS), with NASA recognizing him for the “most compelling results from the ISS” in 2013. He also was team leader of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s Cardiovascular Section for a decade, advising NASA flight surgeons on cardiovascular medical issues. His work with astronauts has fueled his ability to help with patients with “gravity diseases” such as syncope (fainting) and orthostatic intolerance, which is the inability to stand upright.

Dr. Levine’s many honors include the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Peter van Handel Award, the National American College of Sports Medicine’s Citation Award, the American College of Cardiology’s Distinguished Scientist Award in the Translational Domain, and the Space Medicine Association’s Jeffrey P. Sutton Scientific Achievement Award for his work with NASA studying the effect of spaceflight on the human body.

The scientist continues to explore new frontiers. Backed by a 13-year grant from NASA, his team is studying the cardiovascular adaptation to long duration spaceflight in preparation for exploration class missions to Mars. Among the subjects they studied recently is NASA astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams, who returned in March from the ISS.

In a project funded by the Wilderness Medical Society, the researchers are investigating the effects of extreme altitude, using the lab’s altitude chamber, to determine the minimum amount of oxygen needed to summit safely.

Dr. Levine’s research on the health effects of high altitudes on mountain climbers is featured in the upcoming documentary Annapurna: Dreams and Nightmares from Thin Air Cinematics.
Here is an excerpt.

“I have had my passion for medicine and research fueled by the challenges of extreme environments, including high altitude and spaceflight,” Dr. Levine said, “and thinking about these concepts has kept me energized and motivated throughout my career.”