Jonny Kim, M.D. ’16, will speak at Alumni Day, Harvard’s annual celebration of the global alumni community, on June 5.
Last year, the NASA astronaut, who is also a physician and decorated Navy SEAL, spent eight months on the International Space Station as an Expedition 72/73 flight engineer. The mission included scientific experiments and technological demonstrations related to improving life on Earth and furthering NASA’s Artemis campaign. That deep-space campaign, established in 2017, aims to return humans to the Moon and eventually to support a manned mission to Mars. Kim spent 245 days in space during the mission, orbiting the Earth 3,920 times and traveling nearly 104 million miles.
The son of South Korean immigrants, Kim was born and raised in Los Angeles. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy where he served as a medic, sniper, navigator, and point man on more than 100 combat operations. He treated wounded fellow soldiers during two tours in Iraq (receiving Silver and Bronze Stars), which led him to pursue a medical degree from Harvard.
During his residency in emergency medicine in 2017, he was among about a dozen people chosen—from among 18,000 candidates—to become part of the NASA astronaut corps. Now a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, Kim became an aeromedical dual designator in 2023 (both a naval aviator and a flight surgeon).
During a 2025 interview that aired on NPR last year, Kim spoke about finding his path and about his mission to help people during his time as a military medic. His early years were not easy, he said—but they led him to become a Navy SEAL, and to the practice of medicine.
“The world could use more stories of vulnerability, failure, growth and redemption,” he said. “Having the confidence in finding your identity is a voyage that everyone has to take…[and] the ability to dream is one of the most important things we need to do.”
He urged listeners to “recognize that we oftentimes are all having our own internal battles” and told them to “never, ever sell yourself short.”
