10 Female Scientists of Color You Should Know

Dorothy Vaughan (left), Leslie Hunter (middle), Vivian Adair (right). (Photo via NASA/Beverly Golemba)

Dorothy Vaughan

Like Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan started work for NACA at Langley Research Center before its transformation into NASA. Vaughan began work for the agency during World War II, leaving her job as a high school math teacher for what she had assumed would be a temporary wartime position. However, she would end up working Langley Research Center for twenty-eight years. She said that working at Langley during the Space Race felt like  “the cutting edge of something very exciting”.

In 1949, she became the head of the West Area Computers, a segregated group of female computers consisting entirely of African-American women. Not only did the women have to contend with racist Jim Crow laws that forced them to use separate desks, dining areas, and bathrooms, but they were also forced to worked long hours with a sense of great urgency. The United States was engaged in a desperate space race with the Soviet Union, and nearly all workers at NACA and NASA felt the pressure.

As section head, Vaughan was visible throughout the research center and often collaborated with other engineers. Her recommendations of women for various projects were highly valued.

In 1958, when NACA transitioned into NASA, the segregated units were integrated. Vaughan joined the new Analysis and Computation Division (ACD), where she became an expert programmer. She retired in 1971.

Next: Mae Jemison