Author Margot Lee Shetterly will deliver two talks March 7 in Hampton, Virginia, about her best-selling book “Hidden Figures,” the inspiration for the Oscar-nominated hit movie.
More than 50 family members, friends and colleagues of these “West Area Computers” will be among a packed audience as Shetterly gives two identical talks – one at NASA Langley Research Center at 2 p.m. and the other at the Hampton Roads Convention Center at 7:30 p.m.
The NASA Langley talk is open to the news media but not the public. Shetterly and others will be available for interviews from 1 to 1:30 p.m. To attend the Langley event, contact Michael Finneran at 757-864-6110 or at michael.p.finneran@nasa.gov Media can also take the opportunity to shoot video and still images of the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility being built at NASA Langley. Johnson, a “human computer” and mathematician, is the principal hidden figure on which the movie is based.
The 7 p.m. evening event at the Hampton Roads Convention Center is free to the public and open to all. Shetterly will sign copies of the book at both events.
“Hidden Figures” is the true story of the black women mathematicians at NASA who supported some of America’s greatest achievements in space. In talks, Shetterly celebrates these unsung heroes, teasing out issues of race, gender, science, and innovation against the backdrop of World War II and the civil rights era.
For more information go to https://www.nasa.gov/modernfigures
