Dr. Irene Long, NASA Kennedy Space Center’s chief medical officer, recently was one of three women in the agency who were honored at the Women of Color Technology Awards Conference in Atlanta. She was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The conference, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, attracts thousands of the nation’s top female technologists, executives and students. The awards recognize contributions made by minority women in traditionally male-dominated fields.
The Career Communications Group, publisher of Women of Color, U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology and Science Spectrum magazines, hosts the conference, with IBM Corporation as the title sponsor.
“The encouragement of both of my parents made it possible for me to achieve my goals, but it was my father who inspired my love for aviation and space,” Long said. “In the 1960s, I watched him soar through the skies as he took flying lessons in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. In the 1980s, we stood together to watch the space shuttle launch from Florida on a mission in space. After attaining his heavenly wings in 2002, I am sure that my father is watching me from above as I receive this acknowledgement that both of our dreams have come true.”
Long has been at KSC since 1982. She provides executive leadership and direction, serving as the directorate’s interface with center senior management and organizations to assure support to employee health and the environment. She provides long-range and strategic planning and develops related initiatives to assure proactive, preventative approaches to comprehensive medical and environmental programs.
Long graduated from East High School in Cleveland. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Pre-medicine/Biology in 1973. She received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the St. Louis University School of Medicine in 1977. After a two-year general surgery residency at the Cleveland Clinic and the Mount Sinai Hospital of Cleveland, she completed a three-year residency in aerospace medicine through Wright State University School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. Long received a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Medicine.
Long is a member of the Aerospace Medical Association and its affiliated Space Medicine Branch, and the Society of NASA Flight Surgeons. She received the Society Presidential Award in 1995, and served as its president in 1999. She received the Equal Opportunity Action Committee Group Achievement Award in 1986, along with the KSC Federal Woman of the Year Award. In 1998, she was presented with the Women in Aerospace Outstanding Achievement Award. A native of Cleveland, Long lives on Merritt Island, Fla.
