Dorothy Vaughan
Dorothy Johnson Vaughan 1910 - 2008
Dorothy Vaughan was more than a mathematician. The speed and accuracy of her mental processing earned Vaughan the moniker “Human Computer.” Vaughan, alongside Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, were part of a team of Black female “Hidden Figures” that worked in the shadows to save NASA.
Vaughan graduated from college at the age of 19, earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wilberforce University in Ohio.
Vaughan worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) which was housed in the segregated “west” wing of the Langley Research Center. That former federal agency promoted aeronautical research. In the late 1940s, Vaughan directed the West Area Computers (Black female mathematicians working for NACA). With NACA being an arm of NASA, holding this position made Vaughan the first Black supervisor at NASA.
Before retiring from NASA in 1971, Vaughan worked for several years in NASA’s Numerical Techniques Division and also served as a member of the Analysis and Computation Division. By the time Vaughan was working in Analysis and Computation, NASA was more integrated and included men and women of different ethnic backgrounds.
Vaughan’s major contribution to NASA’s Analysis and Computation team was her expert knowledge of FORTRAN, a computer programming language that was used for scientific and algebraic calculations used to launch shuttle missions.
In all, Vaughan’s NASA tenure lasted twenty-eight years.
