Joan Higginbotham (August 3, 1964 - Present) Graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, Chicago, Illinois, in 1982. In 1987, Higginbotham joined the Kennedy Sapce Center where she participated in 53 space shuttle launches during her 9-year tenure. In 1996, she transfered to the Johnson Space Center as an astronaut candidate. She was part of the crew on STS-116 Discovery (December 9-22, 2006). In November 2007, Joan Higginbotham retired from NASA after logging over 300 hours in space.