Bondar, Roberta (1945-…), a doctor of medicine, became the first Canadian woman to travel in space. In January 1992, she and six other astronauts made an eight-day flight aboard the space shuttle Discovery. During the mission, Bondar studied how space flight affects human beings and how gravity affects and helps shape materials and living things. She experimented with crystals, plants, and insects. She also developed tools and techniques for conducting research in the apparent weightlessness of orbiting spacecraft.
Roberta Lynn Bondar was born on Dec. 4, 1945, in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. She earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of Toronto in 1974 and an M.D. degree from McMaster University in Hamilton in 1977. She served as an astronaut from 1983 to 1992, when she left the Canadian Space Agency to do medical research. From 2003 to 2009, she served as chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Bondar’s medical specialty is neurology, the study of the nervous system and its diseases.
