Dr. Shawna Pandya is the first named female commercial Canadian astronaut and will be flying to space with the Virgin Galactic Delta class of spacecraft with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) as early as 2026. She is also an emergency and aeromedical transport physician, aquanaut, Director of IIAS’ Space Medicine Group, Executive Director of the IIAS Flight Opportunities Program, and Chief of Space Medicine at the Advanced Spacelife Research Institute.

Dr. Pandya serves as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Alberta within the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, where she is a lecturer in “Technology and the Future of Medicine.” She also serves as part of the XPRIZE Brain Trust and as a mentor with the Creative Destruction Lab.

In space operations, Dr. Pandya was on the first crew to test a commercial spacesuit in zero-gravity in 2015. She earned her aquanaut designation on the 2019 NEPTUNE (Nautical Experiments in Physiology, Technology and Underwater Exploration) mission and completed a second aquanaut mission, NEP2NE, in May 2023, for a total of 11 days, 10 nights underwater. She served as the medical lead and co-PI of the 2023 IIAS-01 suborbital research flight, as well as a PI and/or co-I for Ax-2, Polaris Dawn, and Blue Origin payloads.

Her publications include a paper on medical guidelines for commercial suborbital spaceflight and book chapters on space technologies that have benefitted terrestrial medicine, psychological resilience in long-duration spaceflight, reproduction and sexuality in long-duration spaceflight, and the future of space medicine. Her work is permanently exhibited at the Ontario Science Center alongside Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space.

Dr. Pandya’s contributions have been widely recognized. In 2019, she was named a Fellow International of the Explorers’ Club, and in 2022, she was named to the Explorers’ Club’s “50 Explorers Changing the World.” In 2024, she was recognized by the Women’s Space Awards in the Medicine and Health category and inducted as a full member of the International Astronautical Federation’s Human Spaceflight Committee. In 2025, Dr. Pandya was named as a Karman Fellow and a finalist as “Playmaker of the Year” at the inaugural Global Space Awards for her work in co-founding and building the world’s first suborbital research astronautics program. Her work has been profiled by Nature Careers and the Royal Canadian Mint.

To connect with Shawna Pandya, please check her LinkedIn profile.