Scientist-astronaut candidate with Projects PoSSUM. Aquanaut, NEPTUNE mission. Physician, aquanaut, explorer speaker, martial artist, musician.

Cool things I've done: complete scientist-astronaut training, pilot a plane, fly in zero-g, co-found a company based on a challenge to positively impact 1 billion people, perform brain surgery, work on a robot that performs brain surgery, assist in pediatric cardiac surgery (and hold a beating human heart in my hands!), author a book chapter on space technologies used in every-day medicine, interview medical experts, brainstorm with Nobel Laureates and astronauts, go to medical school, go to space school, walk the runway, sang opera, sing the national anthem in front of 10,000+ people, compose music, scuba-dive, parachute, spar (and win) as a black belt in international taekwon-do competition, meditate in silence for 10 days in the forests of Quebec, train Muay Thai alongside a Navy SEAL, complete 21,000 sit-ups in 30 days...and every day just keeps getting better and better.

This is a 3 minute-summary of me in 2016: http://globalnews.ca/video/2705266/global-edmonton-woman-of-vision-dr-shawna-pandya

Here are some of the talks I have done:

"On Success, Failure, Resilience & Pushing the Limits," TEDxUAlberta, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gH6xVSV6lo

"The Next 100 Years," University of Alberta Alumni Weekend 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux4VbDcnLfY

"Everything I Knew About Innovation was Wrong," TEDxEdmonton, 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bLwrTXuBk