Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan (September 20, 1910 – November 10, 2008) was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

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.

At the age of seven, her family moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, where she graduated from Beechurst High School in 1925 as her class valedictorian.

The couple moved to Newport News, Virginia, where they had six children: Ann, Maida, Leonard, Kenneth, Michael and Donald.

[8] The family also lived with Howard's wealthy and respected parents and grandparents on South Main Street in Newport News, Virginia.

Vaughan was very devoted to family and the church, which would play a huge factor in whether she would move to Hampton, Virginia, to work for NASA.

Although encouraged by professors to do graduate study at Howard University,[5] Vaughan worked as a mathematics teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, in order to assist her family during the Great Depression.

[9] During the 14 years of her teaching career, Virginia's public schools and other facilities were still racially segregated under Jim Crow laws.

In 1943, Vaughan began a 28-year-career as a mathematician and programmer at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in which she specialized in calculations for flight paths, the Scout Project, and computer programming.

[2] This segregated group consisted of African-American women who made complex mathematical calculations by hand, using tools of the time.

Their work expanded in the postwar years to support research and design for the United States' space program, which was emphasized under President John F. Kennedy.

In 1949, Vaughan was assigned as the acting head of the West Area Computers, taking over from a white woman who had died.

Mathematician Katherine Johnson was initially assigned to Vaughan's group, before being transferred to Langley's Flight Mechanics Division.

In her final decade of her career, she worked with mathematicians Katherine G. Johnson and Mary Jackson on astronaut John Glenn's launch into orbit.

[8] Vaughan was the first respected Black female manager at NASA, thus creating a long-lasting legacy for diversity in mathematics and science for West Area Computers.