Historical Figures

Dorothy Vaughan, visionary mathematician

American mathematician , Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (1910 – 2008) supervised the group of scientists West Area Computers of NASA, which was then NACA. His story and that of his colleagues were told in the book and film Hidden Figures .

Gifted mathematician

Daughter of Annie and Leonard Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan was born September 20, 1910 in Kansas City, Missouri in the USA. She spent her younger years there before moving with her family to Morgantown, West Virginia. She graduated from Beechurst High School before earning her bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1929 from Wilberforce University, a traditionally black university.

Dorothy's teachers encouraged her to continue her studies at Howard University in Washington; but the crisis of 1929 pushes the young woman to quickly take a job as a teacher to support her family. Dorothy spent the first part of her career teaching at a high school in Farmville, segregated by Jim Crow laws. In 1932, she married Howard S. Vaughan Jr. with whom she had six children.

West Area Computers

In 1941, to maximize the United States' war effort during World War II, Roosevelt put an end to segregation within the defense and federal agencies. Convinced that the war will be played in the air, he encourages the recruitment of mathematicians and engineers. And with the departure of many men in combat, many federal agencies such as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, future NASA) launched large recruitment campaigns for women.

In 1943, Dorothy Vaughan joined the Langley research center as a mathematician; she is assigned to the West Area Computers , a group of African-American female mathematicians employed to perform complex calculations by hand and nicknamed "computers in skirts". Originally led by a white woman, the group is kept strictly separate from groups of white women, with separate restrooms and eating areas. On this segregation, Dorothy will say:"I changed what I could, and what I couldn't, I endured. » (I changed what I could, and what I couldn't change, I endured).

A Career at NASA

After the war, the group continued its research work for the United States space program. In 1949, when the head of the West Area Computers died , Dorothy Vaughan replaces her at the head of the division; she is the first black woman to earn a team leadership at NACA, and strives to support the careers of her female employees. Mathematician Katherine Johnson worked under him for a time, before being transferred to Langley's Flight Research Division.

Understanding the importance that computing would take in the future, Dorothy trained herself in programming and learned in particular the Fortran program (FORmula TRANslator ), a programming language used for scientific computing. Not content with training, she teaches it to her colleagues in order to prepare them for a career transition to IT. Dorothy also participates in the space program by participating in the Scout project.

In 1958, when NACA became NASA, segregation was finally abolished there. Dorothy continued her work there, in the Numerical Techniques Division and then in the Analysis and Calculation Division. She will work a total of twenty-eight years at the NASA research center in Langley.

Dorothy Vaughan retired in 1971. She died on November 10, 2008, at the age of 98. His story, and that of his colleagues Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, is told in the book and film Hidden Figures (Shadow Figures ).

Dorothy Vaughan Wikipedia page in English (more complete)

Dorothy Vaughan Biography

Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, the real women in the shadows of NASA