Dorothy Vaughan

Vaughan's leadership at Langley's West Area Computing unit joined mathematical expertise to advocacy. She recommended women for demanding assignments and pressed for colleagues to receive appropriate promotions and pay. Those decisions mattered in a workplace structured by racial and gender barriers. Her later FORTRAN work also shows a skilled practitioner adapting as computing changed. Read her story for the specific work of recognising ability and creating room for it, alongside the independent achievements of the mathematicians she supervised.