Emilio Larrazabal, 32, a first-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is interested in neurosurgery, transplant surgery and aerospace medicine, and considering his many achievements to date, he will go far in these fields.
Larrazabal has just been selected as one of the 2026 Analog astronaut crew in the Southeast Analog space mission at Georgia Tech this summer, a program that trains young people for space exploration.
Trained as a paramedic, he has served as medical crew for the U.S. Air Force on aeromedical evacuation flights from the Middle East, and from Africa to Germany. He’s also worked as a paramedic for a helicopter medical service in Hesperia, California.
The determination that fuels Larrazabal’s pursuit of his unique combination of interests goes back years – to when he was a teenager and discovered long-distance running. It enabled him to focus his energy, both positive and negative, to get through stressful circumstances, so he challenged himself to run longer and longer distances.
While working full time in a factory, he completed his first marathon-distance run at age 18 by hopping back and forth between treadmills in the apartment complex where he lived. It wasn’t long before he ran the LA marathon and then completed an Ironman Triathlon.
He raised the ante again by running ultramarathons, completing 16, including a 100-mile race in Chula Vista which took 25 hours to finish. He followed this by winning a 300-mile race in Silverton, Colorado. He ran 393 miles in seven days in the Goldsteig Ultrarace in Bavaria, Germany and was the youngest person to complete the 292-mile double crossing of the Badwater Ultramarathon in Death Valley, California in 2015. He also completed the 120-mile Fat Dog race in British Columbia.
The sudden death of a friend in 2016 during a weeklong high-intensity event called SEAL Fit Kokoro Camp, which includes tough endurance exercises with little sleep, made Larrazabal back off from extreme sports. And, he said, “it made me reevaluate where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do in my life. I wanted to do something more meaningful.”
Emergency medicine
Larrazabal started training as an emergency medicine technician and joined the fire department in San Bernardino County. He enrolled at Victor Valley College to become a paramedic.
“I started to do some clinical rotations in the hospital where I started to first work with some of the doctors,” he said. Larrazabal was an ambulance first responder during the COVID-19 pandemic and at vaccination centers that were coordinated by the U.S. military and FEMA.
Larrazabal’s ambitions began to broaden.
“I signed up for the Air Force Reserves to be a flight paramedic,” he said. The Air Force Reserves contributes to his tuition at the David Geffen School of Medicine as part of its Health Professions Scholarship Program. Today, Larrazabal is a 2nd Lieutenant, and as a commissioned officer he will serve four years on active duty.
When he worked as a paramedic for a helicopter medical service in Hesperia, it involved being part of a three-man crew, “a pilot, a paramedic and a nurse,” Larrazabal explained. His crew responded to 911 calls involving car accidents and sudden illnesses, such as heart attacks, that were too far from hospitals for an ambulance to immediately respond.
One case stood out: A 5-year-old girl picked up after a car accident was so badly injured Larrazabal thought she might never walk again, but she did. “Over a year later, the mom brought the daughter to the helicopter base — she wanted to meet the crew that flew her,” said Larrazabal. “She’s made a huge recovery.”
Eyes on neurosurgery
Now he refined his goals further: He wanted to be a neurosurgeon.
“Those type of patients I really didn't think would make it, but they had an incredible recovery,” he said. “Neurosurgical patients in particular stuck out with me the most.”
While working in the Air Force, which awarded him the Air and Space Achievement Medal, Larrazabal enrolled at Cal State University, San Bernardino where he got a bachelor of science degree in chemistry. He then began the process of applying to medical schools.
He was accepted by five schools, and after graduating from college in 2025, he entered the David Geffen School of Medicine, his top choice.
“I asked myself, over the next four years, where do I want to spend my time? Where do I think that I'll get the most support? Where do I think I'll have the most impact for others?” he said. “I knew it was UCLA.”
His experience at the university has exceeded his dreams. “The big takeaway of this program is the mentorship,” he said. “So many of the best doctors in the world are here.”
Larrazabal is conducting research in functional neurosurgery with Bari Ausaf, MD, PhD, and the Surgical Neuromodulation and Brain Mapping Lab team. His research is focused on glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, and developing a cooling implant that will inhibit cancer growth.
Looking ahead, he said, he’s thrilled to be part of the Southeast Analog space mission program, which will involve medical training and engineering. He hopes to complete flight surgeon training after he graduates from medical school.
Larrazabal lives in Montclair with his wife, two stepchildren and four dogs. He still runs several miles every morning, but most enjoys spending free time with his family.
