UCF Aerospace Medicine Program: WEM26 headline sponsor
From the most remote places on Earth to the next frontier of human spaceflight, good medicine begins with understanding the environment. Meet the programme helping bring aerospace medicine into the conversation at WEM26.
Aerospace medicine belongs in the extreme medicine conversation
WEM26 is proud to welcome the UCF Aerospace Medicine Program as our headline sponsor.
Based within the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, the programme brings together research, education and clinical expertise across aviation, space and extreme environments medicine.
Its work explores how to protect health and human performance when the environment changes what care is possible, and how lessons from space can inform care here on Earth.
Headline sponsor of the World Extreme Medicine Conference 2026
Research, education and collaboration
Three connected areas shape UCF’s work in aerospace medicine.
Research
Exploring how spaceflight, microgravity and radiation affect human health and performance.
Education
Developing multidisciplinary learning for current and future aerospace medicine professionals.
Collaboration
Working with commercial spaceflight, government, academia and clinical partners.
Different environments. Shared questions.
In space, distance from definitive care, limited equipment, isolation and delayed evacuation shape every medical decision. Those pressures will sound familiar to people working in remote, humanitarian, rescue and other resource-limited settings.
UCF’s involvement gives the WEM community a chance to explore what aerospace medicine can teach us about planning ahead, supporting human performance and caring for people when there is no easy fallback.
Meet the UCF voices at WEM26
Emmanuel Urquieta and Ed Powers will join the WEM26 speaker line-up to connect aerospace medicine with care in other extreme environments.
Emmanuel Urquieta
Vice Chair of Aerospace Medicine, UCF College of Medicine
Director, CASEEM
Emmanuel oversees the development of aerospace medicine research, education and partnerships, with a focus on the health impacts of space travel as more people venture beyond Earth.
Ed Powers
Chief Medical Officer, CASEEM
Ed brings extensive aerospace and extreme environments medicine expertise to the programme, connecting clinical knowledge with the operational realities of human spaceflight.
Medicine at the Edge: Space, War, and Human Survival in Extreme Environments
Join Emmanuel and Ed for a discussion about the medical challenges shared by spaceflight, conflict, disaster response and other austere settings.
The panel will examine delayed evacuation, limited resources, remote decision-making and human performance, and consider how ideas developed in one environment can improve care in another.
Why UCF and WEM26 are coming together
Space medicine sits alongside the wider challenges of delivering care when distance, environment and limited resources change the rules.
Read more about the programme, its role as WEM26 headline sponsor and what Emmanuel and Ed will bring to the conference conversation.
See where medicine goes next
Meet people working across aerospace medicine and other extreme environments at WEM26 in Edinburgh, 14–16 November 2026.