George Mason University is naming a science and technology building in honor of the one of the NASA mathematicians whose story was told in the motion picture “Hidden Figures.”
The school announced Tuesday that the building on its Manassas campus will now be known as Katherine G. Johnson Hall.
Johnson, who is now 100, worked at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in “Hidden Figures,” which documented the contributions of her and two other African-American women while overcoming racism and sexism.
Johnson and others performed the complex mathematical equations that calculated flight paths and trajectories of the rockets used in the American space program, including the Apollo 11 moon flight 50 years ago.
Mason is also creating a scholarship in Johnson's name.
