About Dave Williams:
An emergency doctor, neuroscience researcher and scuba diver, Canadian astronaut Dave Williams was one of four Canadians selected for the Canadian Astronaut Program in 1992. He became the seventh Canadian in space when he flew as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle Colombia in 1998. Dave Williams flew on a second space mission in August 2007, when Space Shuttle Endeavour delivered a truss system and gyroscope to the International Space Station. Dave Williams performed three space walks on that mission, a record for a Canadian astronaut.
Space Missions of Dave Williams:
- Mission Specialist on Space Mission STS-90 - Space Shuttle Columbia - April 17 to May 3, 1998
- Mission Specialist on Space Mission STS-118 - Space Shuttle Endeavour - August 8-21, 2007
Birth:
May 16, 1954 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Dave Williams was raised in Montreal, Quebec.
Education:
- BSc in Biology - McGill University in Montreal, Quebec
- MSc in Physiology - McGill University
- MD - McGill University
- Master of Surgery - McGill University
- Residency in family practice - University of Ottawa
- Residency in emergency medicine - University of Toronto
Medical Career of Dave Williams:
- In 1988 Dave Williams was an emergency room doctor at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He also lectured in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto.
- From 1989 to 1990 Dave Williams was an emergency doctor with Emergency Associates of Kitchener - Waterloo and was the medical director of the Westmount Urgent Care Clinic.
- He later became Director of Emergency Services at Sunnybrook and an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Toronto.
- On retirement from the Canadian Space Agency in 2008, he joined McMaster University in Hamilton as Director of the Centre for Medical Robotics.
Dave Williams the Astronaut:
- In 1992, Dave Williams was chosen by the Canadian Space Agency to begin training as an astronaut.
- In 1993 he was appointed manager of the Missions and Space Medicine Group of the Canadian Astronaut Program.
- In 1995, Dave Williams went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for a year of training and evaluation. After training, he was assigned to the Payloads and Habitability Branch of the NASA Astronaut Office.
- In 1998, Dave Williams became the seventh Canadian in space when he flew as a mission specialist on STS-90 aboard Space Shuttle Colombia. The Neurolab mission performed experiments on the effects of microgravity on the brain and the nervous system.
- From 1998 to 2002 Dave Williams was Director of the Space and Life Sciences Directorate at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. He was the first non-American to hold a senior management position at NASA.
- In 2001, he took part in the NEEMO 1 mission, a training exercise held in Aquarius, an underwater research habitat in Key Largo, Florida, which allows astronauts to train for the International Space Station and also to test technologies before they are used in space.
- In 2006, Dave Williams was the crew commander of the NEEMO 9 mission which assessed methods of delivering medical care to a remote location, much like would be done on a long flight in space.
- Dave Williams flew as a mission specialist on STS-118 in August 2007, where he performed three space walks, a record for a Canadian astronaut. The focus of this mission was more on construction rather than experiments, and it delivered and installed a truss segment on the International Space Station and also installed a new gyroscope for steering and steadying the station.
- Dave Williams retired from active astronaut status in March 2008. He joined McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario as the Director of their new Centre for Medical Robotics.
