Ken Kamler

A microsurgeon fellowship-trained at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Ken practices hand surgery in New York, but practices extreme medicine in the remotest regions on Earth: Arctic, Antarctic, Amazon, Africa, Himalayas; in weightlessness aboard NASA zero-gravity flights and undersea in mock space capsules. Doctor on six Everest expeditions, four funded by National Geographic making tectonic measurements, and two by NASA testing remote sensors. Climbed to within 900 vertical feet of the summit and was the only doctor high on the mountain during the epic 1996 disaster. Physician for US Army Kilimanjaro research expedition. Physician on a Norwegian salvage ship using unmanned submersibles to recover Apollo 11 rocket engine from 14,000’ in the mid-Atlantic.

Ken has traveled to the most remote regions of Bhutan under the direction of the Minister of Health to assess health conditions. He went to the Kazakhstan Steppe to interview survivors of Russian Gulag prison camps for a film documentary. He explored caves in the Ukraine that were inhabited by Jewish families hiding from the Nazis during WWII and advised a filmmaker preparing a documentary about it. Most recently, he was on a NASA-funded expedition to make an aerial survey of glacial recession in the Andes and learn how it has affected Quechua culture.

Profiled in NY Times, USA Today, Newsday, US News, and Reader’s Digest. Spoken twice at national TED Talks. Ken has appeared in IMAX, National Geographic, Discovery, and History Channel documentaries; frequent guest on national radio and TV, including NPR’s Fresh Air; TED Radio Hour; BBC World Service; Nightline; Dateline; 48 hours; 20/20; Today Show; Good Morning America; CNN; Fox News; Outdoor Life Network; Live with Regis + Kelly; Arsenio Hall; Bear Gryllis, Xploration Outer Space, William Shatner’s Weird or What; The UneXplained; Larry King; a full hour on Oprah.

Ken has authored two books on survival, Doctor on Everest, and Surviving the Extremes. He writes chapters on wilderness medicine for academic and popular books, and writes columns for popular magazines. He is a former vice president and 18-year director of The Explorers Club, and a former member of the Popular Mechanics Editorial Board of Advisors.

Honors include being named a “Best Doctor” by NY Magazine and by Newsday; a sub-camp named for him at the National Boy Scout Jamboree; the Science Museum of Long Island Lifetime Science Achievement Award; an Explorers Club award for Heroism and Altruism on Everest; the 2009 Lowell Thomas Distinguished Explorer Award, 2014 Explorers Citation of Merit.