Bogotá · Aerospace Medicine Lab

Diego L. Malpica H.
Engineering human performance for the edge of flight.

Aerospace Medicine specialist, researcher, and AI developer working at the intersection of aviation physiology, extreme‑environment medicine, and applied machine intelligence — building systems that help humans operate safely where the atmosphere stops cooperating.

MD · Aerospace Medicine Aviation Physiology Human Factors Applied AI / LLMs Extreme Environments
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Current Focus

Associate Professor of Aerospace Medicine and lead researcher at the Direction of Aerospace Medicine. My day‑to‑day blends clinical aviation medicine, advanced human‑factors training, and the design of computational tools that turn physiology into actionable signal.

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Selected Projects

A working portfolio across human performance modeling, aerospace medicine tooling, and applied AI. Several projects are private — descriptions intentionally stay high‑level.

Human Performance · Modeling

Aircrew Fatigue Prediction Engine

Implementation of a sleep–wake bio‑mathematical model that forecasts effectiveness, alertness, and cognitive risk for variable duty schedules — designed to support flight operations and crew planning.

PythonBio‑mathOps
AI · Aerospace Medicine

Aeromedical Multi‑Agent System

A multi‑agent LLM workflow for aeromedical certification and research support — orchestrates retrieval, reasoning and verification across regulatory, clinical and scientific knowledge sources.

LLM AgentsRAGMedical AI
Research · Systematic Review

LLMs in Aerospace Medicine — Systematic Review

An end‑to‑end pipeline for screening, extracting and synthesizing the literature on large language models applied to aerospace and clinical aviation contexts.

NLPEvidence Synthesis
Physiological Monitoring

Wearable Physiology Analyzer

Toolkit for processing wearable bio‑signal recordings (ECG, HRV, respiration, accelerometry) from astronaut‑grade and athletic devices — built around reproducible HRV metrics and time‑series QC.

HRVSignal ProcessingWearables
Hypobaric Operations

Altitude Chamber Operations Suite

Application for managing hypobaric‑chamber profiles, capturing physiological data and supporting instructor decisions during hypoxia awareness training.

Operational ToolData Capture
Hypoxia · Hardware Integration

Reduced‑Oxygen Breathing Device Interface

Serial‑port acquisition layer and GUI for capturing customized data from a normobaric hypoxia training device, enabling research‑grade logging beyond the stock interface.

Hardware I/OGUI
Decompression Physiology

Decompression Sickness Risk Models

Iterative DCS modeling — both classical physiological formulations and machine‑learning variants — to better characterize altitude‑exposure risk in operational profiles.

MLPhysiology
Otologic Physiology

Middle‑Ear Barotrauma Model

Computational model of pressure‑driven middle‑ear injury, grounded in chamber experience and the published literature, intended for instructor briefings and risk discussion.

ModelingENT
Cognitive Performance · Fighter Aviation

Fighter Pilot Neurocognitive Profiling

Systematic review and meta‑analytic work on the neuropsychological profile of high‑performance fighter aircrews, with emphasis on attention, executive function and workload tolerance.

Meta‑analysisNeurocognition
Automation · Cognitive Load

Automation & Attention in Commercial Cockpits

Research project examining attention and neurocognitive domains in commercial pilots operating highly automated flight decks — manuscript and analysis pipeline in progress.

Human FactorsAutomation
Workload · Experimental Platform

Multi‑Attribute Task Battery — Military Adaptation

Customized derivative of an open multi‑attribute task battery, tailored toward military aviation workload research, with extensions for experiment replicability and data export.

Experimental PsychWorkload
Cardiometabolic · Aviation

Metabolic Syndrome in Pilots — Evidence Hub

Living review and analysis pipeline on metabolic syndrome and cardiometabolic risk among aircrews, connecting clinical markers to operational fitness implications.

EpidemiologyAviation Medicine
Acceleration Physiology

+Gz Symptom & Recovery Model

Resource‑flow simulation of symptom induction and recovery from sustained Gz acceleration in aeronauts — supports training narratives and tolerance discussions.

SimulationG‑forces
Chronobiology

Circadian Simulation Toolkit

Working library for simulating and analyzing human circadian rhythms under arbitrary light schedules — useful for shift, mission and long‑haul operational planning.

ChronobiologyLight
AI Research Infrastructure

Deep Research MCP Server

Model‑Context‑Protocol server for AI‑assisted deep research — built around citation discipline, scientific rigor and tight integration with reasoning models.

MCPLLM Tooling
Knowledge Engineering

Personal Vector Knowledge Store

Vector‑store and retrieval system that backs my aerospace‑medicine literature workflow, including a private MCP layer over a personal reference library.

RAGEmbeddings
Clinical Calculators

Human Performance Calculation Suite

Collection of small Python utilities that estimate physiological outcomes used routinely in aerospace medicine training and consultation.

Toolkit
Pulse Oximetry

Bluetooth Pulse Oximetry Bridge

Custom interface to acquire SpO₂ and pulse signals directly from Bluetooth pulse oximeters, rebuilt after the original mobile pipeline became unavailable.

BLESpO₂
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Field Missions

Polar · 2022–2023

IX Antarctic Expedition

Medical Officer and researcher with the Colombian Antarctic Program. Studied physiological responses, cold‑exposure adaptation and risk management in extreme polar environments.

Space Analog

THOR Analog Mission

Medical Officer in a confined‑habitat space analog campaign, focused on isolation, confinement and cognitive‑physiological responses relevant to long‑duration spaceflight.

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Selected Research

Metabolic Syndrome and Clinical Markers Among Military Airmen (2023)
Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance
Psychological and Physiological Responses to Isolation — THOR Mission (2023)
Journal of Applied Cognitive Neuroscience

Full Portfolio on Google Scholar →