{"id":11657,"date":"2024-01-17T09:57:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T14:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/?page_id=11657"},"modified":"2025-10-14T14:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:49:21","slug":"robert-thirsk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/honorary-degree-guidelines-and-nominations\/robert-thirsk\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Thirsk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Robert Thirsk\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Robert Thirsk was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa, at the 2:00 p.m. ceremony on Thursday, June 13, \u201cin recognition of his outstanding career as a Canadian astronaut, his many contributions to scientific and health research, and his promotion of science education and lifelong learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Robert<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thirsk was born and raised in Western Canada. He received degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Doctorate of Medicine from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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He has flown on two space missions as a member of the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s astronaut corps. He first flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1996 with six crewmates as part of the Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission. His second flight in 2009 was a six-month expedition aboard the International Space Station, the first Canadian to fly a long-duration expedition there. Thirsk and his five international crewmates performed multidisciplinary research, robotic operations, and maintenance of the station\u2019s systems and payloads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He currently leads a national task force assessing a potential role for Canada in deep space astronaut health care. Thirsk has been also honoured with the Order of British Columbia, the Outer Space Exploration Medal of Merit from Russia and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. He has also been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Calgary and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Thirsk is an adjunct faculty member at International Space University and works with educational specialists across Canada to develop space-related curricula for young students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is a strong promoter of an economy based upon exploration and innovation. He encourages youth to build their dreams upon a foundation of advanced skills and lifelong learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WATCH THE AWARD CEREMONY OF Robert Thirsk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Thirsk was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa, at the 2:00 p.m. ceremony on Thursday, June 13, \u201cin recognition of his outstanding career as a Canadian astronaut, his many contributions to scientific and health research, and his promotion of science education and lifelong learning.\u201d Thirsk was born and raised in Western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":340,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cu_dining_location_slug":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_page_type":[],"class_list":["post-11657","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13525,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11657\/revisions\/13525"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/senate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_page_type?post=11657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}