Irene D. Long (born 1951), who was the first African American female chief of the Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health Office at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is one of the highest-ranking professional women at the Kennedy Space Center.

In that post, Long was responsible for overseeing that the health and welfare of workers remained compromised before, during, and after a space craft launch (a program so comprehensive that it has been used as a model at other worksites). Long's career in aerospace medicine also involves support to the Johnson Space Center's collection of medical data on the condition of astronauts, including the effects of space on an individual's physiology and the consequences of weightlessness. Her next position at NASA--director of the John F. Kennedy Space Center's Biomedical Office--lasted from 1994 to 2000. Since then, she has been the Kennedy Space Center's chief medical officer and associate director of...