Matthew Kynes, MD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt Health and Program Director for Anesthesiology at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, has received the 2026 Nicholas Greene, MD Award for Outstanding Humanitarian Contribution from the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He received the award Oct. 19 in San Diego at the ASA annual meeting.
The award recognizes an ASA member whose career supports humanitarian aid and disaster relief, or anesthesia education and training in low-income countries.
Kynes is the third Vanderbilt University faculty member to receive the award. Mark Newton, MD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Director of Anesthesia Global Health and Development, won in 2016. Kelly McQueen, MD, MPH, then director of Anesthesia Global Health and Development, won in 2017.
Kynes first visited Kijabe as a resident in 2014. He returned in 2016 and spent six months there in 2019 filling in for Newton. In 2021 he moved to Kenya with his family, and he has practiced there full time as a pediatric anesthesiologist ever since.
In 2022 he co-founded Kenya’s first anesthesiology residency program accredited by the College of Anesthesiologists of East, Central and Southern Africa (CANECSA). As its director, Kynes has trained residents from three African countries. The program’s first graduates, in 2025, became Kijabe’s first two full-time Kenyan anesthesiologists.
Kynes also leads weekly multisite teaching sessions for residents in Kenya and Tanzania. He serves on CANECSA’s Examinations and Credentialing Committee, which writes certifying exams for 12 countries, and he has led pediatric anesthesia short courses in Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan.
At Vanderbilt Health, Kynes has directed the Global Anesthesiology Fellowship since 2018 and has supervised more than 50 residents and fellows during rotations at Kijabe. He chairs the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Global Committee and has served on the ASA Committee on Global Health.
Kynes received a BS in biology from the University of Florida and his MD from Vanderbilt. He completed a residency in anesthesiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2015 and a fellowship in pediatric anesthesiology at Vanderbilt Health in 2016, the year he joined the Vanderbilt faculty.
