Hon. Dr. Kirsty Duncan MP (Minister of Science) today presented the Life Time Achievement Award to Dr. Roberta Bondar & Dr. Menaka Thakkar for their lifetime achievements and lifelong contribution to the community.

As the world’s first neurologist in space, Dr. Roberta Bondar is globally recognized for her pioneering contribution to space medicine research. Aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-42 in 1992, she conducted experiments in the first International Microgravity Laboratory, a precursor to the International Space Station.

For more than a decade at NASA, Dr. Bondar headed an international space medicine research team finding new connections between astronauts recovering from the microgravity of space and neurological illnesses here on Earth such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. These research 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.

A true renaissance woman, Dr. Bondar was trained in professional nature and landscape photography, and is an acclaimed photographer of the natural wonders of our planet. As an author, environmental educator and celebrated landscape photographer, Dr. Bondar has also earned a reputation as a leading speaker and consultant within the medical and scientific communities, and in the field of corporate social responsibility and care for the Earth's environment.

Dr. Menaka Thakkar is the first Indian dancer to receive the Canada council Walter Carsen Prize for the excellence in Performing Arts and the Governor General’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in dance. She is also the first Indian dance artist to have received an honorary doctorate from York University where she taught as Adjunct Professor in the dance department for several decades.

She has been a major figure in Canada’s dance landscape, where she has created a several generations of Indian dancers across the country, in the classical systems of Bharatanatyam and Odissi. As a choreographer, she has created a large number of original works and successfully experimented with new forms, movement and dance vocabulary, thus making fundamental contributions to the development of neoclassical and contemporary forms of Indian dance.

Her own performances have ranged internationally over a large number of cities and countries in a brilliant 50 year performing career. She became a leading voice for obtaining funding support for Indian dance as a classical art form from the Canada Council for the Arts.