Dorothy Vaughan was a mathematician and NASA’s first African-American manager. She was born on September 20, 1910, in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. Dorothy graduated as the valedictorian of her class from Beechurst High School in 1925. She received a full-tuition scholarship to attend Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio.
Afterwards, she worked as a mathematics teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville. During the height of World War II in 1943, Dorothy started a 28-year career as a mathematician and programmer at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, specializing in calculations for flight paths, the Scout Project, and computer programming. Although she initially thought her job would be temporary when she first arrived at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, she ended up staying for many years.
In 1949, Dorothy was appointed as the acting head of the West Area Computers, replacing a white woman who had passed away. She became the first black supervisor at NACA and one of the few female supervisors at the time. She led a group consisting entirely of African-American women mathematicians.
Dorothy worked to create opportunities for the women in West Computing as well as women in other departments. In 1961, she transitioned to electronic computing after NACA introduced the first digital (non-human) computers to the center. Dorothy became skilled in computer programming, teaching herself FORTRAN and sharing her knowledge with her coworkers to help them prepare for the transition. She made significant contributions to the space program through her work on the Scout Launch Vehicle Program.
Dorothy is one of the women featured in Margot Lee Shetterly’s 2016 nonfiction book Hidden Figures and the feature film of the same name. She was portrayed by the Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer.