Post by AS Taylor

Dorothy Johnson Vaughan born 1910 was an African American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1943, Vaughan began a 28-year-career as a mathematician and programmer at Langley Research Center, in which she specialized in calculations for flight paths, the Scout Project, and computer programming. 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 smart enough to realize that digital computers had the potential to replace the human "computers" in her team and she wanted to ensure that the women could still have a future in the organization. She taught herself the Fortran programming language for the IBM 704 mainframe computers that NASA was installing. She became an expert programmer, taught many women to program and worked on the Solid Controlled Orbital Utility Test launch vehicle. Vaughan hoped to be promoted to management, but never moved up again before she retired in 1971. She was married from 1932 until1955. They had six children. She died in 2008. https://lnkd.in/grqqn_F