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DOROTHY JOHNSON VAUGHAN The real “hidden figure”

When we talk about science everybody comes up with names like Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolás Copérnico, Galileo Galilei or Albert Einstein, but nobody remembers names as May-Britt Moser, Gerty Theresa Cori or Dorothy Johnson Vaughan. This happens because women have not been valued throughout the history of science. They have always been working in the background and this is why we don't know about the discoveries or progress they have made on science.

For example, Dorothy Johnson Vaughan worked very hard for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and also for NASA. This is why we will focus on this scientist, because she was the first African-American supervisor and manager woman on the NASA. Dorothy was a mathematician and a “human computer” (somebody who was responsible for performing mathematical calculations before electronic computers were available) that throughout her life worked for NACA and NASA.

Date of Birth: September 20, 1910 Hometown: Kansas City, MO Education: Mathematics, Wilberforce University, 1929. Profession: Mathematician. Hired by NACA: December 1943 Retired from NASA: 1971 Date of Death: November 10, 2008

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LIFE AND DEATH

The world heard the first breaths of one of the most brilliant people on this planet on the 20th September 1910. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She has the daughter of Annie and Leonard Johnson.

In 1917, her family moved from Missouri to Morgantown, West Virginia . She graduated from Beechurst High School in 1925. She later on earned a degree Mathematics in the year 1929 from Wilberfoce University, which was located near Xenia (Ohio).

Soon after that, she started working as a teacher in Virginia, even though she was encouraged to graduate study at Howard University. In 1932, she married Howard Vaughan. They moved to Newport News and had six children: Ann, Maida,

Leonard, Kenneth, Michael and Donald. One of them would later work for NASA.

In the year 1943, she began her long career as a mathematician and programmer at Langley Research Center. She worked with other African American female mathematicians who were also considered “human computers”, performing complex computations and analyzing data for aerospace engineers. These women were known as the “West Computers”. They provided data that was later essential to the success of the early U.S. Space Program.

At that time, black employees were forced to use separate bathrooms and dining rooms. Despite these conditions, Vaughan was promoted to lead the West Computers in 1949. She became NACA’s first black supervisor and one of its few female supervisors.

She was the head of the West Computers until 1958, when NACA was incorporated into NASA. Vaughan and other “West Computers” joined the NASA Analysis and Computation Division, a group made up of men and women of all races.

By that time, the space program had begun using electronic computers, and Vaughan became an expert at FORTRAN, a computer programming language.

She retired from NASA in 1971, at the age of 60. Vaughan was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, an African-American sorority. She died in November 10th 2008, when she was 98.

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HOMAGE

Vaughan is one of the women highlighted in Margot Lee Shetterly´s 2016 non-fiction book called Hidden Figures, and also in a film with the same name. The book and film are both about stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson. The film talks about how the three women calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and Apollo 11 in the 1960s.

Dorothy Vaughan also wrote a song called “Math Math” because she was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and there she participated in music and missionary.

Jone Larrañaga, Joseba Epelde, Paula Diaz, Andoni Moreno, Maite Ayerdi, Julene Iturbe, Angela Ocio and Jone Irañeta.