U OF G PROVIDED GROUNDING FOR THREE GENERATIONS OF GRADS

All four seasons are captured in the named gardens that are part of the D.M. Rutherford Family Conservatory and Gardens marking the U of G entrance.

The gardens and restored 1930s-era greenhouse were dedicated in 1999 during the 125th anniversary of the Ontario Agricultural College. A year earlier, Donald M. Rutherford, OAC ’51, made a leadership gift of $256,000 toward the $1-million project.

The surrounding six gardens are named for donors, including an Autumn Garden named for Rutherford’s Class of ’51. The class marked its 70th anniversary in 2021 by raising $51,000 for student awards intended to foster leadership.

Rutherford died in fall 2021 at age 93.

On hand for the dedication ceremony in 1999 were Rutherford’s family members, including his granddaughter Bonnie (Speed) Douglas, then studying biological engineering at U of G.

“He was proud of me for going to Guelph,” says Douglas, B.Eng. ’02, whose studies here extended the family connection.

A generation earlier, her parents met on campus as students. Her father, Grant Speed, completed agricultural diploma studies in 1973; her mom, Jean Curtis, studied science at U of G in 1971 before enrolling in teacher’s college.

Referring to the conservatory and surrounding gardens, Douglas says, “The project was important to Donald and the family because it allowed three generations of alumni to connect and strengthen their Guelph roots.”

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Morris completed her PhD in genetics studies in 1946, becoming one of the first two women to receive a doctorate from Cornell’s plant breeding department. She accepted a faculty position at the University of NebraskaLincoln (UNL), becoming the first woman faculty member hired by the agronomy department, where she spent a 43-year-long career.

AS A CYTOGENETICIST WITH UNL’S WHEAT TEAM, MORRIS DEVELOPED AND TESTED CHROMOSOME LINES IN BREAD WHEAT VARIETIES.

Early in her studies, she looked at the effects of radiation on crops including corn genes. Keen to improve her technical skills, she completed a fellowship at the California Institute of Technology in 1949-50. She also spent several months in 1956-57 on a Guggenheim scholarship in Sweden and England.

As a cytogeneticist with UNL’s wheat team, Morris developed and tested chromosome lines in bread wheat varieties. “This involved meticulous microscope observations by Rosalind and her assistants,” read her obituary. “Many of these lines were shared with wheat scientist in different countries.

“Rosalind was a trailblazer for women in agronomy when it was unusual to see women in such roles.”

Morris died March 26, 2022, just over a month before her 102nd birthday.

Born May 8, 1920, in Wales, she moved to Canada with her family in 1925. The move came after her father, a teacher, had contracted flu following the First World War; a doctor had advised him to find an outdoor occupation.

By 1930, the family was living on a fruit farm in Lambton County.

In 1997, she established the W. Penri Morris Memorial Scholarship at U of G, named for her brother, who was killed during the Second World War.

A longtime member of the Nebraska Academy of Scientists, Rosalind Morris belonged to the local branch of the American Association of University Women and to the St. David’s Society of Nebraska.

Her cytogenetics work continues to provide a resource for researchers studying functional genomics.

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Marcie Jacklin, B.Sc. ’78, received the 2021 Hodgkiss Outdoorsperson of the Year Award for organizing local bird counts and calling for preservation of natural areas around Fort Erie, Ont. Named for the founding president of the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the award recognizes a Canadian who has demonstrated an enduring commitment to conservation. Jacklin has spent decades in environmental advocacy and citizen science with organizations in the Niagara Region and beyond, including leading the boards of the Niagara Falls Nature Club, Peninsular Field Naturalists, Buffalo Ornithological Society and Ontario Field Ornithologists.

1970s
David Barker, B.Sc. ’74, studied earth science at U of G. In 2021, he retired as professor of biblical studies at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ont. After graduating from U of G, he entered church ministry and was ordained in 1984 He served as interim president, academic dean and vice-president at Heritage, and pastored churches in London, Kitchener and Bracebridge over the past 40 years.

1980s
Guy Gilron, B.Sc. ’84, M.Sc. ’88, received the Coal Association of Canada 2020-21 Award of Distinction. Working with the coal sector, especially in Western Canada, he has helped the association and its members apply environmental science in development of policy, regulation and water science communication.

Dr. Scott Reid, DVM ’87, received the 2022 Golden Life Membership Award from the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association. The award honours a veterinarian who has served the profession for at least 30 years and has made extraordinary contributions to animal welfare and veterinary medicine. During his 35-year career, Reid has practised in Dunnville, Ont.

1990s

Colleen Fitzpatrick, B.Comm. ’91, is executive director of the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, B.C. She was named
in 2021 as a Top 40 Over 40 honouree for community collaborations ranging from the local food bank to Festivals Kelowna. Earlier, she earned recognition for community involvement and volunteerism in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., where she was director of convocation and associate director of community relations at the University of Waterloo. Colleen completed a postgraduate diploma program in public relations at the University of Victoria.

Liz Duval, B.Sc. ’95, was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame, a U.S.-based organization that recognizes outstanding leadership and achievement in individual and team athletics. Duval, who is Métis and who grew up in Penetanguishene, Ont., was captain of the U of G women’s hockey team, which was inducted into the Gryphons Hall of Fame in 2016. She later played in the Central Ontario Women’s Hockey League and
the National Women’s Hockey League before retiring in 2001.

Alison Howard, BA ’95, was named executive director of ABC Life Literacy Canada. She has spent more than two decades in the non-profit sector, including working with the Conference Board of Canada.

Rhett Hawkins, B.Comm. ’96, MBA (Agr.) ’02, became president of Kahntact, a full-service marketing services company in agriculture and food across North America. Earlier, he held senior roles at Farm Journal Media, the largest ag-focused publisher in the United States.

Pam Charlton, B.Sc. (Env. Sci.) ’97, was named general manager of Holstein Ontario. She has worked in the dairy industry for 22 years, running Elm Bend Farms in Brant County as a family farm. Charlton has delivered programs and education through the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, Holstein Canada and Brant 4-H.

Ninh Tran, B.Sc. ’99, M.Sc. ’00, was named medical officer of health for Oxford and Elgin counties. Previously, he was associate medical officer of health for Hamilton Public Health Services. Tran studied medicine at Queen’s University after completing graduate degrees in nutritional sciences at U of G and studied health research methodology at McMaster University.

Dr. Cliff Redford, DVM ’98, volunteered in Poland this past spring at refugee shelters near
the Ukrainian border, where he and his daughter, Emily, worked with organizations tending pets of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Dr. Cliff” owns Wellington Veterinary Hospital in Markham, Ont. A long-time animal rescue volunteer in several countries, he credited his U of G studies for his adaptability and resilience. “Going to vet school and graduating with a DVM grants you a very specific set of skills that allow you to analyze problems and find solutions.”

2000s

Bonnie (Speed) Douglas, B. Eng. ’02, is a project coordinator for the Canadian Association for Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology, a nonprofit advocacy coalition for diversity and inclusion in the science, engineering, trades and technology workforce. Recently, Douglas was project manager for the We Are Trades project, an initiative that seeks to help employers create safe and inclusive workplaces for tradeswomen.

Dr. Lisa Waddell, B.Sc. ’02, MSc. ’04, PhD ’16, is senior epidemiologist in the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Guelph. As a knowledge synthesis and translation methods specialist, she focuses on policy-relevant public health questions in food safety and infectious diseases including COVID-19.

Dr. Kelly Barratt, DVM ’05, was named as the 2021 Bovine Practitioner of the Year by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners. She is a partner at Heartland Animal Hospital and Veterinary Services in Listowel, Drayton and Mount Forest, Ont., where she is a specialist in dairy herd health. She is the first woman and youngest honouree to receive the award, which recognizes a practising veterinarian for significant contributions to bovine medicine.

Greg Young, B.Sc. ’05, won silver at the World Bench Press Championships, held in Kazakhstan, in May 2022 with a lift of 545.6 pounds. He is an RCMP officer in Tofino, B.C.

Pavla Kazda, MBA ’09, has been appointed dean, business and management, automotive business, at Georgian College. Earlier, she served in management and leadership roles in the food service industry and with the Government of Ontario.

2010s
Andrew Eldebs, B.Eng. ’15, studied environmental engineering and has founded a soil exchange management company called Fillmaps (www.fillmaps.com). Through soil testing, drone surveying, loading and transport, the company helps landowners to divert clean soils from landfills, freeing up space in landfills.

Jason Kelly, MBA ’16, has received the 2022 Certified Hospitality Technology Professional of the Year award for the highest score on the CHTP certification exam. Currently studying for his doctorate in hotel and tourism management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he studied hospitality and tourism management at U of G and has worked for more than 20 years in the field in Canada.

Jaime Vieira, B.A.Sc. ’16, is the minor league hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. She is the first woman coach hired by the Major League Baseball team. Previously, she was a research and development intern in baseball operations with the Jays. Vieira played and coached softball at the University of Guelph-Humber.

Francine Pauvif, BA ’19, and Aleksandra Spasevski, B.Sc. (Env. Sci.) ’19, are co-founders of the Canadian Youth Biodiversity Network.

Equestrian show jumping brings together grads Dr. Tim Worden, B.Sc. ’10, M.Sc. ’12, PhD ’16, (below) and Sean Jobin, BA ’19, (above) as partners in sport science. A Grand Prix show jumping rider representing Canada, Jobin competes internationally, including competing in the Canadian Championships and the Venice Equestrian Tour. This year, he is signed to the Major League Show Jumping Tour as a member of the Northern Lights team. Worden studied biomedical science and biomechanics at U of G and is a board member of the Equine High Performance Sports Group and the Sport Horse Research Foundation. Based in Toronto, he has consulted for Equestrian Canada and has spoken and written on sport medicine and performance.

The organization is a chapter of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network and connects youth across Canada in biodiversity education and awareness as well as liaison with all levels of government.

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Two students in the School of Fine Art and Music have been chosen as 2021 recipients of major awards. Emmanuel Osahor has won the $30,000 Joseph Plaskett Postgraduate Award in Painting and Ella Gonzales received the $10,000 second-prize Nancy Petry Award. Both were enrolled in U of G’s master of fine art in studio art program.

DANIEL STOLFI
The Comedian vs Cancer

Daniel Stolfi, BA ’05, details his cancer treatment in this moving and comedic memoir. Diagnosed at age 25, he created an award-winning, one-person stage play called Cancer Can’t Dance Like This. He performed the play for 10 years across North America, raising more than $100,000 for charities. A portion of proceeds from his book sales will benefit Young Adult Cancer Canada.

HEJSA CHRISTENSEN
Stealing John Hancock

Hejsa Christensen, BA ’98, will release this debut thriller later in 2022. She writes in partnership with her mother, Alie Christensen, as H&A Christensen. Based in Ontario, the mother-daughter duo are staff writers for several film production companies.

DAVID GIULIANO
The Undertaking of Billy Buffone

An award-winning memoirist and writer of non-fiction, David Giuliano, BA ’82, M.Sc. ’93, has published his first novel, The Undertaking of Billy Buffone. Set in an isolated community in northern Ontario, the novel examines lives intertwined in the search for redemption amid the uncovering of longburied truths.

 

MICHAEL BARCLAY
Hearts on Fire: Six Years That Changed Canadian Music 2000-2005

Michael Barclay, BA ’93, explores a seminal period in Canadian music with stories of more than 40 diverse artists as a follow-up to his earlier volume, Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance, 1985-1995.

 

JUDITH NASBY

The Making of a Museum

This volume published in 2021 by Judith Nasby, the founding director and curator of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, relates the story of the gallery from its beginnings in U of G hallways to its current status as the Art Gallery of Guelph. Nasby discusses the development of the museum’s collection, including Inuit drawings, Indigenous beadwork, historical European etchings and works by Canadian silversmiths.

 

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JERRY BOUMA
The Villanova Track Story: Touching Greatness, Together Forever

How a small private university in the eastern United States became a world middledistance track and field power is related in this book by Jerry Bouma, M.Sc. (Agr.) ’77. A former Canadian junior champion, in 1970 he became the first Canadian to secure an athletics scholarship to Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Later at U of G, he was ranked No. 1 in Canada for the 1,000 metres.

DR. ALISON SEELY
The Hex Chromosome

Dr. Alison Seely, M.Sc. ’91, DVM ’95, published her second novel, The Hex Chromosome, in 2021. Her first novel, One Bone at a Time: Tales of an Adventurous Animal Chiropractor, was published in 2019.

DEEPA RAJAGOPALAN, an MFA candidate in creative writing, has won the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award for her short story Peacocks of Instagram. Her submission was selected from more than 130 entries by a jury of PEN Canada members. The New Voices award supports new Canadian writers of short stories, creative non-fiction, journalism and poetry, and provides $3,000 and mentorship from a Canadian author.

KAREN CARUANA (née Steinbeck), BA ’89, is a translator working from French and German into English. She is currently translating Wounded Land: Cree and Ojibwe Talk About Their Land, a history of Indigenous people in northern Ontario.

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Nasrin Husseini helps settle refugees fleeing Afghanistan.

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in fall 2021, Nasrin Husseini watched in despair as change and progress in her native country unraveled, especially for girls and women.

“I was in shock, I was distressed,” she says. Husseini, a University of Guelph grad, knows first-hand how it feels to live amid threats from the Taliban and to be barred from getting an education.

She fled Afghanistan in 2010 when it became unsafe for her to continue working as a veterinarian. Husseini eventually made her way to U of G, earning an M.Sc. in immunology in 2020. She was among the first graduate students to receive the $50,000 Arrell Food Institute scholarship. Now a research assistant in U of G’s Department of Pathobiology, she is helping transform Canada’s beef industry.

But the resurgence of the Taliban has turned her attention to her homeland, where she fears for the future of women, girls and minorities in Afghanistan. She wants to make a difference.

“Right now, because of the crisis that has happened in Afghanistan, I didn’t think for a second—I just started helping and working for Afghan refugees,” she says. Husseini volunteers with Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services, a non profit organization. She helped the group approach Danby Products Ltd. in Guelph and get the company’s support to settle Hazara refugees in the city Earlier in Afghanistan, she advocated for the rights of women, girls and minorities, and taught English and computer skills to women. As an Afghan veterinarian, she helped farmers raise healthier animals to increase productivity and reduce treatment costs. She says Taliban threats led her at times to cease teaching or to remove her business sign from the door. Her courageous efforts were recognized recently when she was named to the prestigious BBC 100 Women list for 2021.

The BBC 100 Women includes climate activists and grassroots leaders, international CEOs and “mega-stars” playing their part to “reinvent our society, our culture and our world after the global pandemic has forced so many of us to reassess the way we live.”

Husseini was among 50 exceptional Afghan women on this year’s list, which highlighted the struggles of Afghan women and girls under renewed Taliban rule. “I admire those Afghan women who are working from inside Afghanistan,” she says.

“For me to be considered on the same list with them is a great honour. They are putting their lives in danger, and I am just working from outside the country.” Husseini was the first woman to graduate from Kabul University’s veterinary medicine program, finishing at the top of her class in 2011.

She says after the collapse of the Taliban rule in 2001, girls and women experienced some improvements in their quality of life—albeit slowly and limited—such as being allowed to go to school and work.“It wasn’t easy. We had to work very hard, but it felt so good,” she says.

“I got into veterinary school in Afghanistan when it was a huge deal for a girl to be a veterinarian.” Eventually, discrimination forced Husseini to leave Afghanistan—for the second time. As a child, she had moved with her family to Iran to escape the ongoing war. Only when the family returned to Afghanistan could she attend post-secondary education.

Husseini is Hazara, which is one of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic minorities, accounting for up to 20 per cent of the country’s 30 million inhabitants. Husseini says the Taliban has a long history of violence and oppression toward the Hazara.

Since its return to power in 2021, conditions for the group and for women and girls in general have rapidly worsened, she says. Many people in the country have fled or gone into hiding. In late March, the Taliban closed girls’ high schools after having reopened them almost seven months earlier. Husseini said she feels “so blessed, so happy” to be working at U of G and living in nearby Kitchener.

“Finally, I am in a safe place that I can call home.

I love my work. I love working with animals,” she says. “But now my main concern is for the women and girls of my country and for the Hazara. Everyone is so upset, so afraid. Many are now in hiding. They are really in danger.” Husseini sees an opportunity for the Canadian government to assist Afghan refugees currently living in Iran—many of them academics with graduate degrees—to come to Canada, as well as minorities that fled Afghanistan and are now in a second country.

She plans to continue her advocacy. “With this BBC recognition, I think the weight is heavier on my shoulders, and I have to do more. People are counting on me.”

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From retracing the footsteps of the Franklin expedition in Canada’s Arctic to taking part in cocaine drug busts in the Caribbean, Lisa Tubb had her share of memorable moments during her first-ever deployment with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in fall 2021.

It was a voyage of firsts for Tubb, who grew up in landlocked Mitchell, Ont., before studying history at the equally landlocked U of G beginning in 2012.

Last year, besides marking her firsttime crossing of the Arctic Circle en route to sailing through the Northwest Passage during the maiden voyage of the HMCS Harry DeWolf, she notched her inaugural circumnavigation of North America. This was the second RCN ship to sail around the continent.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime deployment,” said Tubb. Now 27 and beginning her fourth year with the Navy as a public affairs officer, she is back in Ottawa on the issues management and operation desk.

But she hopes to get out on the water again soon. “I like to think the best is yet to come.” What she calls her inaugural “adventure” started in early August when she travelled to Iqualuit in Nunavut. There she met the vessel with its crew of about 80 people.

“We were introducing a new class of arctic and offshore patrol ship to Canada’s Northern regions,” said Tubb, whose job was to publicize the voyage with Canadians through social media, video and photos.

She had been on the ship for just over a week when she was charged with helping a CBC television crew headed by Peter Mansbridge to film a documentary of the Arctic. Tubb also led production of the Navy’s own documentary about the voyage called Into the North.

As part of Operation NANOOK, Canada’s signature Arctic exercise that included Canadian and American Coast Guard vessels, the ship visited Indigenous communities, including Pond Inlet and Cambridge Bay. Tubb helped run ship tours for community members.

“We’re there to serve Canadians, to conduct presence patrols in the Arctic, and to fortify our close

“It was a oncein-a-lifetime deployment,” said Tubb, who hopes to return to the water soon.

partnerships with federal, territorial and local communities.”

Each of the new class of ships is affiliated with various Inuit communities. For HMCS Harry DeWolf, that was the Qikiqtani region of Nunavut.

One moment during the ship’s passage through the Arctic archipelago resonated with her U of G history studies.

Referring to Sir John Franklin’s mid1800s attempt to find the Northwest Passage, she said, “We traced Franklin’s footsteps.”

She and others visited barren, wind-swept Beechey Island, where three members of the Franklin expedition were buried. Recalling the bleak surroundings and a hike over difficult terrain, she said, “You start to appreciate what those men went through. You can’t help feeling helpless for their situation, after struggling up that mountain, feeling the brittle rocks crack beneath your feet—their wintering place could not sustain them.”

After negotiating the Arctic, the ship continued down the western flank of North America to the Caribbean. There, the crew worked again with U.S. Coast Guard partners on Operation CARIBBE to counter illicit drug trafficking.

The team apprehended two small vessels transporting a total of more than 2,500 kilograms of contraband cocaine. Observing the activity from the deck of the patrol vessel, Tubb kept busy recording everything she could to tell the story later—and even donned gloves to help remove the narcotics from the boats.

“As the public affairs officer, I’m there on the bridge, taking notes, using my GoPro camera, hearing the voices of my friends crackling over the radio—and in the second event, seeing it unravel quite close by. I was up there with the guys the entire time

The Royal Canadian Navy vessel traversed Canada’s Arctic archipelago in 2021.

“My operations officer had to tell me to take care of myself, to go to bed. I didn’t want to miss a minute.”

Once through the Panama Canal, the ship headed up the Eastern Seaboard and docked in Halifax in early December.

“I joined the military because I wanted a challenge,” said Tubb, whose basic training as well as French language lessons and public affairs training occurred between 2018 and 2020 “The idea of service was already in the background.”

Her dad is the fire station chief back in Mitchell. Several relatives in her grandparents’ generation served during the Second World War; one great-uncle was in the Navy during the Korean War.

“Giving back to the community was something that really called me.”

Attending U of G sharpened her focus.“The whole idea to join the Forces started at Guelph,” said Tubb. One summer she worked with history professor Dr. Catharine Wilson on her Rural Diary Archive project, which
helped develop Tubb’s interest in personal accounts of history and led her to explore Canadian military stories especially.

Her U of G days also helped her learn about herself.

“I found out more about who I was as a person, my interests and values,” said Tubb. “Stories of the military and
heroes motivated me to push myself. I wanted to continue my study and storytelling of Canadian heroes.”

She ended up pursuing a personal project to investigate all the names inscribed on the cenotaph in her hometown, and she published a Historical Guelph article about her research on HMCS Guelph, a Second World War vessel.

On campus, she served as an orientation volunteer, worked for Hospitality Services and played on the University quidditch team that competed in nationals in Victoria. “Whenever I see Johnston Hall, Johnston Green and the Portico, I always picture it with quidditch in the background.”

After graduating in 2016, she completed a master’s degree at the University of Waterloo, studying the lives of workers at a wartime munitions factory in Ajax, Ont.

For last year’s deployment, she took along a Guelph Gryphons flag that found good use after one American naval officer flashed his own varsity colours. “I couldn’t let that go unanswered, I had to show the Gryphon off,” Tubb laughed.

“Our coxswain had said we could consider bringing something from home. The first thing I thought of was my U of G flag. It’s come with me to Victoria, to basic training—it’s my good luck charm.”

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STORY BY ANDREW VOWLES

Orbiting Earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery 30 years ago, Dr. Roberta Bondar heard the voices of her six crewmates, mechanical sounds from equipment, taped music. But as she peered through a window while photographing the planet as a member of NASA’s Earth Observation Team, it was what she couldn’t hear that struck her: no chuckling of running water, no windsighing through tree branches, no birdsong. “When I was looking at the Earth in space, I didn’t see any people,” says Bondar, B.Sc. (Agr.) ’68, whose eight-day mission in 1992 made her Canada’s first woman astronaut. “I didn’t hear any natural sounds. It left me with a sense of foreboding. I’m getting a ringside seat as if the natural world had disappeared. I didn’t like that.”

On the upside, the same vantage point fostered conviction and hope about the future of the planet – traits that would ultimately lead her to a successful post-NASA career as an acclaimed nature photographer and champion of environmental activism. Besides affording many “emotional moments” while the shuttle orbited the planet 129 times, the view of Earth suspended against the endless blackness of space brought home her U of G studies of ecology and ecosystems from decades earlier. “The idea to be able to look at Earth as a planet was one of the big values of the flight,” says Bondar, who marked the thirtieth anniversary of her Discovery mission in late January. “I got a more holistic and compassionate view of Earth as a planet and what we need to maintain our existence as a life form.”

Back on firm ground, she initially devoted herself to extending her research done aboard STS-42. As the first neurologist in space, Bondar conducted experiments in the shuttle’s International Microgravity Laboratory. For more than a decade after the flight, she headed an international research team studying connections between astronauts recovering from the microgravity of space and neurological illnesses here on Earth such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. She had hoped to follow up on that work with a return mission to space, but that didn’t happen. Later, Bondar even considered returning to medical practice, going so far as to undertake hospital rounds. All the time, that tug of emotional gravity she’d felt aboard the shuttle had been exerting its influence. She returned to school once more, this time for training as a professional nature photographer. Today Bondar’s varied experience and expertise finds expression in her fine art photography and in her role as the public face and name of a foundation dedicated to raising awareness of the natural world. It’s been decades and several academic degrees since her undergrad days. But in several ways, her active work with the Roberta Bondar Foundation draws upon experiences and ideas that she encountered beginning in 1964 as a member of the first undergrad cohort on the campus of the newly established U of G. “The University of Guelph was the firm foothold,” says Bondar.

Raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., she enrolled at the University to pursue interests in entomology sparked by her summer work experience at a forestry insect lab. Aiming to become a science and physical education teacher, she pursued a slate of science courses alongside extracurricular basketball and archery. She planned to obtain her agriculture degree and then complete a one-year physical education program at McMaster. But in her third year here, two key things happened to alter those plans.

“I got a more holistic and compassionate view of Earth as a planet and what we need to maintain our existence as a life form.”

In that year, McMaster cancelled its PE program. Perhaps more important, Bondar contracted mumps and wound up locked in a campus infirmary. The affliction caused temporary neurological damage to her right shoulder that would end her campus athletics. She recalls a nurse’s words: “You might as well resign your year because you’re not going to pass.”

One day from her isolation window, she spotted her marine biology professor passing in front of Creelman Hall. “I think I put a sign up that said: Help.” Whatever she did, she managed to attract Dr. Susan Corey’s attention. The then biology professor found work for Bondar in her lab, where she made up her missed coursework and ultimately added a zoology major to her program. As well, she pursued communications courses through the new arts college, partly so that she could explain her science studies to her family.

Years later, that mixed curriculum— and subsequent graduate studies at Western University and the University of Toronto, followed by completion of a medical degree at McMaster University—made her an ideal candidate for the space shuttle program and the Discovery flight. Her interest in space had been sparked in childhood, all the
way back to her first Brownie Hawkeye camera and the cardboard “space helmets” that arrived one day in the mail for her and her sister, Barbara. Later, as a grad student back home in the summer of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, she stood with her dad in the backyard, gazing up at the moon, and said, “That’s really what I’d like to do.”

Through the 1970s, that prospect appeared unlikely. Then in 1982, partly on the strength of the Canadarm, the Canadian astronaut program began, and Bondar applied to join the inaugural cohort. Lacking engineering and extensive flight experience (although she had gained a pilot’s licence), she might not have seemed the most promising candidate. But it turned out that NASA liked her mixed background, going all the way back to her U of G studies ranging from plants to embryology. In late 1983, she was among the first six Canadian astronauts chosen. “I knew my stuff. That’s why I became the ‘right stuff,’” says Bondar, who ended up running dozens of microgravity experiments aboard Discovery. “Other contenders had other skill sets, but they weren’t necessarily what NASA needed.”

That comprehensive grounding resonates with Dr. Charlotte Yates, whose official installation earlier this year as U of G president and vicechancellor included video greetings on behalf of alumni from Bondar. “As a scientist who studied biology, zoology and agriculture before becoming a medical doctor, Dr. Bondar now uses the power of her photography to advance

environmental advocacy,” says Yates. “She is the perfect example of an interdisciplinary thinker, nurtured and supported at this very institution, who went on to impact the world with her work.” As an award-winning nature photographer, Bondar has taken her cameras across much of Canada and the United States as well as Kenya. In the field, she mixes ground-level, close-up work with photographing from aircraft, sometimes half-hanging out an open helicopter doorway to get the shot. Her photos are held in various private and public collections in Canada, the United States and Europe, and have appeared in several bestselling books, including Passionate Vision, published in 2008 and containing shots from all 41 Canadian national parks.

Among numerous awards and distinctions, Roberta Bondar is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario, and an inductee of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Forum’s Hall of Fame. Formerly chancellor of Trent University, she has received honorary doctorates from almost 30 Canadian and American universities, including U of G in 1990. She is a specially elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an honorary Fellow and honorary vice-president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame

“I love the body of work she did in our national parks,” says Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose own large-scale depictions of humanity’s environmental impacts include the earlier well-subscribed exhibitions “Anthropocene” and “Manufactured Landscapes.” Both photographers have spoken and exhibited together at various events; recent samples of their work will be paired this year in Canada’s Senate building under a project led by Senator and art historian Patricia Bovey. Burtynsky says he and his colleague are part of a “sea change” involving various contemporary artists—writers, photographers, painters, filmmakers—whose works are increasingly drawing attention to environmental issues and concerns. In Bondar’s case, he says, her former vantage point from the space shuttle lends her extra conviction. “I think her seeing the Earth from space, that moment when a lot of astronauts come to see the Earth in powerful ways—you don’t see boundaries, countries, you see the nature, the green, the brown. She speaks about and makes photographs of that landscape under threat. It’s important for us to have respect and reverence and to understand its important role in our own survival.”

Several of Bondar’s works were part of a 2017 exhibition called “Light in the Land: The Nature of Canada” held at the Art Gallery of Guelph. Interviewed during that event, she said, “Something that I’m trying to bring to people’s attention in terms of the diversity of the country is that we have different types of biological systems. We have places that some people will never get to, and I feel that it is important for me, after my space flight, to talk to people about the very valuable piece of real estate that Canada has.”

“Our survival depends on how we treat the world around us.”

The same desire to share her vision now drives the work of the Roberta Bondar Foundation, based in Toronto. Established in 2009, the foundation aims to promote environmental conservation, respect and curiosity through science and art. Explaining the impetus for its creation, she says, “I firmly believe if you love something, you want to protect it. I see the natural world in peril because of what we do. I feel the role of my foundation, and my views since my space flight, is really to present the beauty of the world as it exists in the moment. We need to take some responsibility in trying to lessen the impact that we have as a life form on these wonderful natural systems.” For Bondar, it’s an ethical responsibility that finds expression in living more economically, including repurposing material and belongings like, say, used camera equipment. Staff at an observatory in Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park, for instance, are using donated equipment marked with her name. “I can’t remember the last time I sold a camera. I don’t like dumping things,” she says. “I think our survival depends on how we treat each other and how we treat the world around us. It’s the ethical nature of human beings that will dictate the survival not just of human beings but the survival of the natural world.”

Today the foundation’s programs include everything from travelling biodiversity exhibitions taken to galleries, schools and museums, to a nature photography challenge for students run in partnership with EcoSchools Canada, to a national innovation and creativity award launched early this year as part of the Discovery flight anniversary. Under a relatively new endeavour called Space for Birds, Bondar aims to draw attention to human impacts—notably hunting and habitat loss—on endangered species of migratory birds. She’s chosen seven threatened species whose migration paths between breeding

and wintering grounds collectively span much of the globe.

Nature photographer Roberta Bondar documents migratory bird species

The black-tailed godwit, for instance, wings between the Netherlands and sub-Saharan Africa, a journey of about 3,000 km, one way. Other species cover up to 15,000 km in a flight, as with the curlew sandpiper that travels from the Siberian Arctic to sub-Saharan Africa and the red knot whose journey takes it from the Canadian Arctic to southern South America. For each species, the foundation has developed online “story maps” detailing life cycles as well as hazards posed by human habitat encroachment and ideas for site visitors to help preserve the birds. The story maps feature Bondar’s ground- and aircraft-based photos along with NASA images of Earth—a range of vantage points reflected in the project’s formal name: AMASS, or Avian Migration Aerial Surface Space.

Earlier this year, Bondar spent a week at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf coast of Texas. There, she photographed whooping cranes in their wintering grounds for the project— they fly 4,000 kilometres northward each year to breeding grounds at the border of Alberta and the Northwest Territories—and spoke at the Whooping Crane Festival held in Port Aransas in late February. With her were members of the foundation, including board chair Dr. Bonnie Patterson, who served as president of Trent University during Bondar’s six-year tenure as chancellor.

In her board role, Patterson might equally be speaking to visitors to the foundation booth at a trade show or slinging camera equipment on an African savannah field trip or across the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies. “There’s never been a time when I have been in the field when I haven’t learned something,” says Patterson, adding that her colleague brings to her work a mix of focus, creativity, determination and patience. Humility and humanity are also important ingredients: “She can take photos and put them together for a United Nations Environment Program conference in Egypt and inspire people there about what has to happen. Then she can take those photographs to a small community, and she will be the same, helping people learn, inspiring them.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever met a greater humanitarian,” says Bovey, the first art historian to be appointed to Canada’s Senate in 2016. Referring to Bondar, she says, “Her warmth just exudes.” Bovey, formerly the director of the Buhler Gallery at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, recalls the photographer’s visit there during an exhibition of her work in 2014. Among the visitors were a woman and her young son, both recent Spanish-speaking immigrants to Canada. “The boy came in with a children’s book about space in Spanish. Roberta sat down on the gallery floor with him. They went through the book page by page, and she gave English words for his favourite images,” says Bovey. “Here is one of Canada’s astronauts sitting on the floor in a gallery in a hospital in St. Boniface, Manitoba, taking time to talk to this little boy.”

Bondar says for any audience, it’s important to encourage people to take small steps. It’s like learning the alphabet, one letter at a time. In your neighbourhood, environmental consciousness might show up when kids start picking up litter or teach their parents to do the same. “It’s not just about taking photos but about teaching people to look at the world around them,” she says. “We know we have to do things in a manageable way. We want to get people to move along the continuum. We have to give them a place to start, we have to give them an emotional reason to do it.”

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