[4] The daughter of physician Mel and politician Claire Shulman, she was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but raised in New York City.

Prior to her selection as an astronaut candidate, she served as a physician in the Flight Medicine Clinic at the Johnson Space Center.

[8] STS-34 Atlantis (October 18–23, 1989) launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Mission objectives were accomplished in 221 orbits of the Earth, traveling 5.7 million miles in 331 hours 30 seconds and 4 minutes in space.

It also carried a Spacelab module in the payload bay in which the crew performed various life sciences experiments and data collections.