Julie Payette

Julie Payette (born October 20, 1963) is a Canadian engineer, scientist and former astronaut who served from 2017 to 2021 as Governor General of Canada, the 29th since Canadian Confederation.

Payette holds engineering degrees from McGill University and the University of Toronto.

Payette was born on October 20, 1963, in Montreal, Quebec, and lived in the Ahuntsic neighbourhood, attending Collège Mont-Saint-Louis and Collège Regina Assumpta.

In 1982 she completed an International Baccalaureate diploma at the United World College of the Atlantic in South Wales, United Kingdom.

For her undergraduate studies, Payette enrolled in McGill University where she completed a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering in 1986, after which she completed a Master of Applied Science degree in computer engineering at the University of Toronto in 1990.

Her thesis focused on computational linguistics, a field of artificial intelligence.

She is a retired member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec.

She speaks French and English, some Spanish, Italian, Russian and German.

During her schooling, between 1986 and 1988, Payette also worked as a systems engineer for IBM Canada's Science Engineering division.

From 1988 to 1990, as a graduate student at the University of Toronto, she was involved in a high-performance computer architecture project and worked as a teaching assistant.

At the beginning of 1991, Payette joined the communications and science department of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland, for a one-year visiting scientist appointment.

She worked as a research scientist before joining the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in 1992 as a member of the Canadian Astronaut Corps.

She completed two spaceflights, STS-96 and STS-127, and has logged more than 25 days in space.

When she returned to Canada, in January 1992, she joined the Speech Research Group of Bell-Northern Research in Montreal where she was responsible for a project in telephone speech comprehension using computer voice recognition.

Payette was selected by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) as one of four astronauts from a field of 5,330 applicants in June 1992.

After undergoing basic training in Canada, she worked as a technical advisor for the Mobile Servicing System, an advanced robotics system and Canada's contribution to the International Space Station.

In 1993, Payette established the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the Canadian Astronaut Program and served as a technical specialist on the NATO International Research Study Group on speech processing.

In preparation for a space assignment, Payette obtained her commercial pilot licence and logged 120 hours as a research operator on reduced gravity aircraft.

In April 1996, Payette was certified as a one-atmosphere deep sea diving suit operator.

Payette obtained her captaincy on the CT-114 Tutor military jet at CFB Moose Jaw in February 1996 and her military instrument rating in 1997.

Payette has logged more than 1,300 hours of flight time, including 600 hours on high-performance jet aircraft.

Payette reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996 to begin mission specialist training.

After completing one year of training, she was assigned to work on the Mobile Servicing System.

Payette completed the initial astronaut training in April 1998.

Payette flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery from May 27 to June 6, 1999, as part of the crew of STS-96.

During the mission, the crew performed the first manual docking of the shuttle to the International Space Station, and delivered four tons of logistics and supplies to the station.

On Discovery, Payette served as a mission specialist.

Her main responsibility was to operate the Canadarm robotic arm from the space station.

She also served as capsule communicator at NASA Mission Control Center in Houston and from 2000 to 2007 as CSA's chief astronaut.

Payette served as chief astronaut for the Canadian Space Agency from 2000 to 2007.

She also worked as capsule communicator at the Mission Control Center in Houston for several years, including the return to flight mission STS-114.

She was lead capsule communicator during STS-121.

In July 2013, Payette was named chief operating officer for the Montreal Science Centre.

She also held a number of board appointments, including the National Bank of Canada.

On July 13, 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Queen Elizabeth II had approved the appointment of Payette as the next governor general of Canada.

She was invested on October 2, 2017.

Payette resigned on January 21, 2021, following the conclusion of a workplace review that found she had "belittled, berated and publicly humiliated Rideau Hall staff" and "created a toxic, verbally abusive workplace".

The review was initiated by the Privy Council Office to investigate accusations of harassment of civil servants in the Office of the Governor General.

The report's official goal was not to validate nor make findings of fact, as it only relied on what interview participants reported.

She is the second governor general to have resigned the office, after Roméo LeBlanc (who resigned due to health issues), the first to resign due to scandal, and the first to have left a vacancy upon resignation.