Dorothy Vaughan taught mathematics in segregated Virginia schools for over a decade before joining the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA's predecessor, in 1943 as a mathematician in its racially segregated West Area Computing unit, part of the wartime push for skilled labour.
In 1949, Vaughan became acting head of the West Area unit, making her the first Black supervisor at NACA and one of the very few women, of any race, to hold a supervisory role at the agency. She managed a team of Black women mathematicians — known as "computers" — who performed complex calculations by hand for aeronautical research.
Anticipating the shift from human computers to electronic ones, Vaughan taught herself and her colleagues the FORTRAN programming language, ensuring her team's skills remained essential as NASA modernised. She went on to work on the Scout Launch Vehicle Program before retiring in 1971, her contributions largely unrecognised publicly until the book and film Hidden Figures brought her story to wide audiences decades later.
- First Black supervisor at NASA's predecessor, NACA
- Led the West Area Computing unit of Black women mathematicians
- Self-taught FORTRAN programmer who prepared her team for the computer age
- Contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program
- Subject of the bestselling book and film Hidden Figures
- Anticipate change and prepare for it.. Vaughan taught herself a new programming language before her job required it, protecting her team's future.
- Lead by lifting others.. As supervisor, she focused on developing the skills of the women under her, not just her own advancement.
- Excellence under invisibility.. She did essential, high-stakes work for decades with little public recognition, and did it well regardless.
- History can be recovered.. Her story, buried for decades, was eventually told and now inspires new generations in STEM.