He brought a piece of Western into space and landed it back at home. And now, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques will help launch new graduates into the next stages of their lives.
Saint-Jacques will virtually speak with some of the new Western graduates on June 14 during the spring convocation celebrations.
The Canadian Space Agency astronaut holds the record for having worked on the longest Canadian space mission to date: a 204-day flight from late 2018 to mid-2019 aboard the International Space Station. (ISS).
Her role as a mentor and role model for young scientific researchers is exemplified by her encouragement to students when Canada announced a partnership in February 2019 with NASA’s Lunar Gateway program (with Western experience a key part of project). “Canada invites you to dream big,” Saint-Jacques said from the ISS.
In a prominent list of Canadian astronauts, a group of scientists as illustrious as can be found anywhere, Saint-Jacques may be the most accomplished.
Astronaut David Saint-Jacques answers 10 questions in 60 seconds (Canadian Space Agency video)
He holds a degree in physical engineering from the École polytechnique de Montréal and a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge. He continued to work as an astrophysicist in the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and Canada.
He then graduated with a degree in medicine from Laval University and had a family medical practice in northern Canada, before rising to the top among thousands of future astronauts to join the CSA in 2009.
Saint-Jacques has a commercial pilot license and an advanced diving license. He is a mountaineer, skier, rower and sailor. He is fluent in French and English, and speaks Russian, Spanish, and Japanese.
While aboard the ISS, he conducted scientific experiments, shared scientific conversations with hundreds of students via video links, operated on Canadarm2, and was a medical officer on the crew.
She is one of the 18 outstanding people to whom Western awards honorary titles during the spring call.
Western space patch as seen in the dome of the International Space Station with the Earth as a backdrop. (Photo source: Canadian Space Agency / NASA)
Saint-Jacques and Western have a long-standing relationship. In January 2019, a month after launching into space, it launched Exploring Earth, a web-based initiative that uses photos it is taking in orbit to explain the amazing science of how the Earth works.
Support materials for the initiative were compiled by Western space experts, as well as Western geographers, geologists, biologists, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and postgraduate and postdoctoral academics.
Saint-Jacques even laid the groundwork for the October 2019 launch of the Earth and Space Exploration Institute (Western Space). Months earlier, he brought a western patch to the ISS and took a picture of it, and its corner of space through the dome of the ISS.
He returned the patch to Earth and placed it in a frame to be part of the inaugural celebrations of Western Space.