Dorothy J Vaughan

Dorothy J. Vaughan (1910–2008) was the first African-American female supervisor of the NACA, advancing to become an expert in digital computers and their applications in NASA programs. 

In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.

Vaughan was born September 20, 1910, in Kansas City, Missouri, as Dorothy Jean Johnson. She was the daughter of Annie and Leonard Johnson. At the age of seven, her family moved to Morgantown, West Virginia. 

 In 1932, she married Howard Vaughan, Jr., and the couple had six children:   Ann, Maida, Leonard, Kenneth, Michael and Donald. The family also lived with Howard's wealthy and respected parents and grandparents on South Main Street in Newport News, Virginia. Vaughan was very devoted to family and the church, which would play a huge factor in whether she would move to Hampton, Virginia, to work for NASA. 

During her career at Langley, Vaughan was also raising her six children, one of whom later also worked at NASA-Langley. Vaughan lived in Newport News, Virginia, and commuted to work at Hampton via public transportation.

In 1955, her husband Howard Vaughan died. 

After receiving a full-tuition scholarship, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics at the age of only 19 from Wilberforce University, a historically black college in Wilberforce, Ohio. 

She joined the Zeta chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Wilberforce and graduated in 1929 with a B.A. in mathematics. Although encouraged by professors to do graduate study at Howard University, Vaughan worked as a mathematics teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, in order to assist her family during the Great Depression. 

After graduation, she became a mathematics teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School, the African-American high school in Farmville, Virginia. During the 14 years of her teaching career, Virginia's public schools and other facilities were still racially segregated under Jim Crow laws. 

In 1935, the NACA had established a section of women mathematicians, who performed complex calculations.[5] In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, to desegregate the defense industry, and Executive Order 9346 to end racial segregation and discrimination in hiring and promotion among federal agencies and defense contractors. These helped ensure the war effort drew from all of American society after the United States entered World War II in 1941. With the enactment of the two Executive Orders, and with many men being swept into service, federal agencies such as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) also expanded their hiring and increased recruiting of women, including women of color, to support the war production of airplanes. Two years following the issuance of Executive Orders 8802 and 9346, the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (Langley Research Center), a facility of the NACA, began hiring more black women to meet the drastic increase in demand for processing aeronautical research data. The US believed that the war was going to be won in the air. It had already ramped up airplane production, creating a great demand for engineers, mathematicians, craftsmen and skilled tradesmen.

In response to the call for workers to support home-front efforts during World War II, Vaughan applied for a position as a “computer” at the NACA Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, and was hired in December 1943. She reported to the segregated West Area Computing unit. This group was responsible for mathematical computations for engineers conducting aeronautical experiments. Using slide rules, mechanical calculators, and film readings, they provided the engineers with wind-tunnel and flight data in the form of final engineering parameters needed to analyze the flight characteristics of aircraft. 

The group’s first two section heads were white, but in 1949, Vaughan was promoted to lead the West Area Computers, making her the NACA’s first black supervisor and one of its few female supervisors. She oversaw work assignments within the group, at times responding to requests for individual computers to support specific Langley work units. She was a steadfast advocate for the women who worked as computers and advocated on behalf of all computers, regardless of race, who deserved promotions or pay raises.  She was valued by engineers and researchers for her recommendations of the best individual for a particular project and she was often requested to personally calculate particularly challenging computations herself.

She collaborated with computers Vera Huckel and Sara Bullock to compile an algebraic methods handbook for the mechanical calculating machines used by the group.

Vaughan was the supervisor for the West Area Computers until 1958, when the NACA became NASA and segregated facilities and work units were abolished.  She then joined the new Analysis and Computation Division, a racially and gender integrated group on the frontier of electronic computing.  As a member of the Numerical Techniques Branch, she became an expert FORTRAN programmer and contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program. 

In her final decade of her career, she worked with mathematicians Katherine G. Johnson and Mary Jackson on astronaut John Glenn's launch into orbit.

She retired from NASA in 1971, following a 28-year career that began during World War II, continued through the beginnings of high-speed flight and into the Space Age. She challenged herself to learn new technology so that NASA could have the very latest computing technology for research applications

Dorothy Vaughan passed away on November 10, 2008, in Hampton, Virginia, at the age of 98. She was preceded in death by her husband, Howard, and sons Michael J. Vaughan and Donald H. Vaughn. She was survived by her four children: Ann Hammond, Maida Cobbins, Leonard Vaughan, and Kenneth Vaughan.

Her countless calculations supported NACA and NASA accomplishments and helped to achieve the nation’s aerospace goals from the early days of World War II to the beginnings of the Space Age. She encouraged and supported all “computers” to advance their careers and their contributions to the NACA and NASA. She persevered to serve her country when many would hold her back because of her race. After her retirement, when asked about working within the constraints of segregation and gender she remarked, “I changed what I could, and what I couldn’t, I endured.” 

Vaughan was the first respected Black female manager at NASA, thus creating a long-lasting legacy for diversity in mathematics and science for West Area Computers. As one of the first female coders in the field who knew how to code FORTRAN, she was able to instruct other Black women on the coding language and paved a wave of female programmers to integrate their work into NASA’s systems.

In 2005, a scholarship fund with the Salem Community Foundation was created under Dorothy Vaughan’s name to further music training by the Salem Music Study Club.

Vaughan is one of the women featured in Margot Lee Shetterly's 2016 non-fiction book Hidden Figures, and the feature film of the same name. She was portrayed by the Academy Award winning actress Octavia Spencer.

The Dorothy J. Vaughan Academy of Technology opened in Charlotte, NC, in August 2017. This school is inspired by Vaughan’s “leadership, innovation, creativity, curiosity, and love of learning.” The school is a member of the Magnet Schools of America Association.

In 2019, Vaughan was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Also in 2019, the Vaughan crater on the far side of the Moon was named in her honor.

On 6 November 2020, a satellite named after her (ÑuSat 12 or "Dorothy", COSPAR 2020-079D of the ÑuSat series) was launched into space.

Vaughan’s personal Bible and NASA retirement identification card are displayed in the Museum of the Bible’s exhibition Scripture and Science: Our Universe, Ourselves, Our Place.  The African Methodist Episcopal Church also gave her a service award.

• 1925: Beechurst High School – Class Valedictorian
• 1925: West Virginia Conference of the A.M.E. Sunday School Convention – Full Tuition Scholarship
• 1929: Wilberforce University – Mathematician Graduate Cum Laude
• 1949–1958: Head of National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics' Segregated West Computing Unit (NACA)
• October 16, 2019: a lunar crater is named after her. This name was chosen by planetary scientist Ryan N. Watkins and her student, and submitted on what would have been Dorothy Vaughan's 109th birthday. 
• November 8, 2019: Congressional Gold Medal which was accepted by family members at the 2024 ceremony 
• On November 6, 2020, a satellite named after her was launched into space 
• On July 19, 2024, NASA Johnson Space Center's central data office, known as Building 12, was renamed as the "Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo" as a "tribute to the people who made humanity's first steps on the Moon possible."

• Dorothy J Vaughan Biography, NASA