Former astronaut and current NFL executive to speak at N.C. A&T graduation ceremonies

With graduation season just around the corner, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has announced the keynote speakers for its 2025 spring commencement.

Joan Higginbotham will speak at the graduate student ceremony. She began her career as an engineer at NASA in 1987, participating in 53 space shuttle launches during her 9-year tenure before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996.

As the third African American woman to travel into space, she logged more than 308 hours off-planet before retiring from NASA in 2007.

Higginbotham spent the next 15 years working in corporate America, but not before making an appearance in Alicia Keys’ Superwoman music video.

Brad Holmes, the executive vice president and general manager of the Detroit Lions, will return to his alma mater to speak at the baccalaureate student ceremonies.

Holmes played defensive tackle for the Aggies’ historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) national championship team in 1999. And after coming back from a car crash that put him in a coma for over a week, he graduated cum laude from N.C. A&T in 2002. 

Holmes has helped turn the Lions into one of the league’s best teams, for which he’s been named the Pro Football Writers of America’s Executive of the Year in back-to-back seasons.