FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Two scientists closely involved with the U.S. space shuttle program will speak to approximately 150 area high school students at 12:15 p.m. Friday, April 8, at the Bell Engineering Center. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Before the high school presentation, Joan E. Higginbotham, NASA astronaut, will address a group of female College of Engineering graduate students at 11:30 a.m. in the John L. Imhoff Study Lounge, on the 4th floor of Bell. The smaller group discussion will include questions and answers about issues in engineering, math and science.

At 1:30 p.m., Higginbotham will deliver a motivational presentation to local high school students, discussing her training, how she applies her engineering skills as an astronaut and the new Vision for Space Exploration.

From 1987 to 1996, Higginbotham actively participated in 53 space shuttle launches in a variety of roles at the Kennedy Space Center. Selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996, she has performed technical duties, tested modules of the International Space Station and worked in Capsule Communicator Branch in support of numerous space station and space shuttle missions. She is currently assigned to the Robotics Branch and is the lead astronaut for the International Space Station Systems Crew Interface Section. Higginbotham is assigned to the crew of the STS-116, which is scheduled to launch sometime in the near future. She was named to the list of Essence Magazine’s Top 50 Women of 2004 and was one of the National Technical Association’s 50 Distinguished Scientists and Engineers, among many other awards. Her biography is available at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/higginbo.html.

Enrique Gomez, currently director of On Demand Solutions Integration at IBM, will address the high school students at 12:15 p.m. in Bell 282. In his talk “How to be a Successful Engineer,” he will explore how one can climb the corporate ladder by taking specific actions and avoiding others. The discussion will include goal setting, self-assessment, planning, leadership skills, potential derailment factors and balancing professional and personal lives.

Gomez started his career at IBM as a programmer for the Guidance, Navigation and Flight Control Systems for the U.S. space shuttle. He designed and implemented many of the flight critical functions for the software that now controls the space shuttle computers. After the Challenger accident in 1986, he was a leader in IBM’s work to develop a method for measuring the degree of confidence in the shuttle’s flight control software. NASA uses the results, and the scientific community has studied them extensively.