Canadian Astronaut and physician, David Williams, is the Director of the McMaster Centre for Medical Robotics at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and a Professor in the Department of Surgery of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. Before coming to McMaster, Dr. Williams served as a NASA mission specialist on STS-118 (August 8 to 21, 2007), the 119th space shuttle flight, the 22nd flight to the station, and the 20th flight for Endeavour. Dr. Williams took part in three of the four spacewalks, the highest number of spacewalks performed in a single mission. He spent 17 hours and 47 minutes outside, a Canadian record.
Dr. Williams was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and graduated from McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, with a Bachelor of Science, Major in Biology (1976). He obtained a Master of Science from the Physiology Department, a Doctorate of Medicine and a Master of Surgery from the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University (1983).Among his academic endeavours and clinical interests, Dr. Williams’ interests include cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation, pre-hospital emergency cardiac care, space medicine, critical care aero-medical transport, robotic and telerobotic surgery
In June 1992, Dr. Williams was selected by the Canadian Space Agency as one of four successful candidates from a field of 5330 applicants to begin astronaut training. He completed basic training, and in May 1993, was appointed manager of the Missions and Space Medicine Group within the Canadian Astronaut Program.In April 1998 Dave participated in STS-90 as Mission Specialist 3 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. Columbia orbited the Earth 256 times, covered over 10 million kilometres and spent over 381 hours in space. From July 1998 until September 2002, Dave held the position of Director of the Space and Life Sciences Directorate at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. With this appointment, he became the first non-American to hold a senior management position within NASA.
In October 2001, he became an aquanaut through his participation in the joint NASA-NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) NEEMO 1 mission, a training exercise held in Aquarius, the world's only underwater research laboratory. During this seven-day exercise, he became the first Canadian to have lived and worked in space and in the ocean. In addition to this, Dr. Williams took the lead of NEEMO 9 as the crew commander of this mission dedicated to assess new ways to deliver medical care to a remote location, as would be done in a long space flight.
