Dorothy Vaughan graduated cum laude from Wilberforce University at the age of 19 with a B.A. in mathematics. She worked at the Langley Research Center for 28 years, several of which she spent officially leading a group of computers. Vaughan was the organization’s first black supervisor (and one of a few female supervisors at the time). Under her leadership, Vaughan’s division saw NASA’s assimilation of electronic computers. She personally taught herself and her coworkers the programming language FORTRAN to transition.
Vaughan retired in 1971. She died on November 10, 2008 at the age of 98.
After her death, Octavia Spencer portrayed Vaughan in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.