Born in Kansas City, MO, in 1910, Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer) received a full ride to Wilberforce University and graduated with a BA in mathematics at the young age of 19. She worked as a teacher for over a decade before beginning her career at NASA's Langley Research Center. Not only was Vaughan an experienced mathematician, but she was also a talented self-taught programmer, proficient in technology that was revolutionary at the time. While working in the space program, Vaughan calculated numerous flight paths, contributed to satellite-launching program SCOUT, and taught her colleagues FORTRAN, a complex scientific computer programming language developed by IBM in the 1950s.
In 1949, Vaughan became the head of the West Area Computers, a black female group of skilled mathematicians at NACA, sometimes referred to as "computers who wore skirts." Both Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson were members. After over two decades of working on what she referred to as "the cutting edge of something very exciting," Vaughan retired in 1971 at the age of 60.
Vaughan passed away in 2008 at the age of 98.
