New NASA Astronaut: Imelda Muller

Bio
Imelda Muller, born in Mineola, New York, considers Copake Falls, New York, her hometown. Her parents, Philip and Imelda Muller, still reside there. She enjoys hiking, endurance sports, scuba diving, and home renovation projects.

While on active duty, she competed as an elite triathlete on the U.S. Military Endurance Sports team and was a member of the All-Navy Triathlon team in 2022.

Muller graduated from Taconic Hills High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University in 2012. She completed her medical degree at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 2017.

Background
Formerly a lieutenant in the United States Navy, Muller served as an undersea medical officer after completing training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in 2019. She completed her transitional year residency internship at Naval Medical Center San Diego in 2018 and was selected as Transitional Year Academic Chief Resident.

At the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Panama City Beach, Florida, she was deputy Medical Department head and chair of the Institutional Review Board, overseeing human subjects protections in high-risk diving research. She supported human performance testing and Navy diving health initiatives, focusing on decompression safety and physiological resilience.

Her experience includes medical support at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. At selection, she was completing an anesthesia residency at Johns Hopkins.