Newsmakers

Civil-rights ­pioneer JOHN DOAR ’44 was among 13 people to be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, along with music legend Bob Dylan, who received an honorary degree from Princeton in 1970. As assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice, Doar was a key figure in many key civil-rights crises in the 1960s. The White House announcement of his honor noted that he singlehandedly prevented a riot in Jackson, Miss., after the death of civil-rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963, obtained convictions in the killings of three civil-rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., in 1964, and led the effort to implement the Voting Rights Act of 1965. ... Cardiol­ogist and researcher GARY GIBBONS ’78 was selected to lead the Bethesda, Md.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. A leader in research related to cardiovascular health of minority populations, Gibbons is expected to start his new position in the summer. ... ROBERT CARO ’57, who just published the fourth volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson, received New York City’s inaugural literary award for nonfiction in April. ... JOHN ARMSTRONG ’84, a former trauma surgeon and until recently the chief medical officer at University of South Florida Health’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, became Florida’s surgeon general in May. ... Architect ERIC KUHNE *83 and his London-based firm designed Titanic Belfast, an exhibition center that opened in the Northern Ireland city March 31. Titanic Belfast is located on a waterfront that once housed one of the world’s premier shipbuilding centers, including the shipyard that built the Titanic.