In 1995, he received a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in biology with a minor in Mandarin Chinese from the Air Force Academy.

He also completed a Master of Public Health (MPH) at the University of Texas Medical Branch in 2007 and a residency in aerospace medicine in 2008.

He went on to support ISS training operation at Star City, Russia and became the deputy crew surgeon for STS-130 and Expedition 24.

The group completed their training and Lindgren and his 13 classmates became eligible for future flight assignments on November 4, 2011.

In 2013, he began training at the Gagarin Space Center and was assigned as backup flight engineer for Expedition 42/43 which launched on Soyuz TMA-15M.

On July 22, 2015, Lindgren launched on his first mission to the ISS alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui onboard Soyuz TMA-17M.

[8] Six hours later the trio docked to the ISS, officially joining Expedition 44 alongside Soyuz TMA-16M crewmembers Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos and Scott Kelly of NASA.

[12][13] On October 28, 2015, Lindgren ventured outside of the ISS with Scott Kelly for his first spacewalk, the two spacewalkers completed several tasks including changing an insulating unit on one of the station's Main Bus Switching Units (MBSU), carried out some maintenance on one of Canadarm-2's Latching End Effector's and prepared both of the station's "open" Pressurized Mating Adapters ahead of the installation of two International Docking Adapters.

Following landing, Lindgren and Yui returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to rendezvous with their families.

He has said that he enjoys running, SCUBA diving, reading, movies, photography, amateur astronomy, working with computers, and church activities.

[34] In October 2022 during his stay at the ISS Lindgren talked live and direct to students from the school at the Argentine base Esperanza in Antarctica NASA video[35]