Dr. Roberta Bondar
Dr. Roberta Bondar is the first Canadian woman to have travelled to space. An astronaut, physician, and photographer, Roberta expanded the horizons of millions when she joined the space shuttle Discovery for its 1992 mission. Since then, Roberta has been recognized with the NASA Spaceflight Medal, and has been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a recipient of the Order of Ontario, and a Specially Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Roberta has received 28 honorary doctorates from Canadian and American universities and is featured on a Canadian stamp. She also has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.
For more than a decade after her spaceflight, Roberta headed an international space medicine research team, finding new connections between astronauts recovering from spaceflight and neurological illnesses on Earth, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Her techniques have been used in clinical studies at the B. I. Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and at the University of New Mexico. Roberta was also Chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario for six years.
Roberta is the co-founder and president of The Roberta Bondar Foundation, a not-for profit charitable organization created to inspire people of all ages to connect with nature through photography. She is also the author of four bestselling books featuring her writing and photography.