Christine Darden

Christine Darden

Christine Darden in the control room of NASA Langley's Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel in 1975. Credit: NASA
Born September 10, 1942 (1942-09-10) (age 74)
Fields aeronautical engineering
Alma mater

Hampton University, 1962;

George Washington University, 1985
Known for studies in sonic booms
Notable awards Dr. A. T. Weathers Technical Achievement Award, 1985

Dr. Christine Darden (born September 10, 1942) is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted her 40-year career in aerodynamics to researching sonic booms at NASA. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted into senior executive service.

Darden is one of several women scientists to be featured in the 2016 biographical drama, Hidden Figures.

Early life and career

Darden was born September 10, 1942 to schoolteacher Desma Cheney and insurance agent Noah Horace Mann Sr. in Monroe, North Carolina. Both parents encouraged her to pursue a quality education.[1] Starting from age three, Darden was brought along to the classrooms where her mother taught, and at age four, Darden was enrolled in kindergarten. During her grade school, Darden took a great interest in breaking apart and reconstructing mechanical objects like her bicycle.[2] Darden finished her last two years of primary school at Allen High School, a boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina. She graduated as the class valedictorian in 1958, subsequently receiving a scholarship to attend Hampton University, then known as Hampton Institute. During her time at Hampton, she found time to participate in some of the earlier protests of the Civli Rights Movement.[3] She participated in several student sit-ins alongside her other Black peers.[2] She graduated from Hampton with a B.S. in Mathematics in 1962. She also earned a teaching certification, spending a brief portion of her early career teaching high school mathematics.[1]

In 1963, she married Walter L. Darden Jr., a middle school science teacher. In 1965 she became a research assistant at Virginia State College, studying aerosol physics. At Virginia State, she also worked as a professor of mathematics and earned her M.S. in 1967.[4] The same year she was hired by NASA as a data analyst at Langley Research Center. Most of Darden's early work involved performing calculations for engineers, though later she began automating the process by writing computer programs.

In 1973 she was promoted to an aerospace engineer by her superior John V. Becker after almost being fired from her previous position.[3] In 1983 she earned in Ph.D in engineering from George Washington University. Her early findings resulted in a revolution of aerodynamics design demonstrating low-boom sonic effects in the 1960s and 1970s.[5][6]

NASA's "human computers"

In 1989, Darden was appointed leader of the Sonic Boom Team, a subsidiary of the High Speed Research (HSR) Program. On the Sonic Boom Team she worked to decrease the negative effects of sonic booms such as noise pollution and the depletion of the ozone layer. Her team tested new wing and nose designs for supersonic aircraft. She also designed a computer program to simulate sonic booms.[4] The program was unceremoniously cancelled in February 1998, "without fan fare or press announcement."[7] A 1998 abstract published by Darden describes the program as focused on "technologies needed for the development of an environmentally friendly, economically viable High-Speed Civil Transport [HSCT]."[8]

Darden was one of several African-American women employed at Langley known as the "West Area Computers."[9] The collective, once tasked with processing scores of collected flight test data, soon garnered a reputation as "human computers" essential to NASA's operation.[10] Despite their noted efficiency, the women were subject to Jim Crow laws even then, and were often required to use separate facilities. Before the group was disbanded, Darden moved up the ranks to become "one of NASA's preeminent experts on supersonic flight and sonic booms,"[11] as well as the first African-American woman at Langley to be promoted into senior executive service.

In March 2007, Darden retired from NASA as director of the Office of Strategic Communication and Education.[12] She is the author of more than 50 publications in the general field of aeronautical design, specializing in supersonic flow and flap design, as well as the prediction and minimization of sonic booms.

Book and film portrayal

Darden is featured in Hidden Figures, a nonfiction book by Margo Lee Shetterly. The book was published on September 6, 2016.

A film adaptation of same name is slated to be released in the United States on December 25, 2016. Darden will not be portrayed onscreen in the movie.[13]

Awards

In 1985 Darden was awarded the Dr. A. T. Weathers Technical Achievement Award from the National Technical Association. She also received three Certificates of Outstanding Performance from Langley Research Center in 1989, 1991, and 1992.[4] She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1987.[14]

References

  1. 1 2 "NASA - Standing on the Shoulders of a Computer". www.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  2. 1 2 Kessler, James H.; Kidd, J.S.; Kidd, Renée S.; Morin, Katherine A. (1996). Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century. Phoenix, Arizona: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 60–63. ISBN 9780897749558 – via Google Books.
  3. 1 2 Shetterly, Margot Lee (2016). Hidden Figures. New York, United States: HarperCollins. p. 202. ISBN 9780062363596.
  4. 1 2 3 Oakes, Elizabeth (2002). International Encyclopedia of Women Scientists. New York: Facts on File. pp. 81–82. ISBN 0-8160-4381-7.
  5. ↑ Darden, Christine (1977). "Sonic Boom Theory: Its Status in Prediction and Minimization". J. Aircraft. 129.
  6. ↑ Darden, Christine (January 1, 1979). "Sonic-Boom Minimization With Nose-Bluntness Relaxation" (PDF). Technical Journal. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  7. ↑ Reynolds, Randolph S. (2004). "An Overview of the Demise of NASA's High Speed Research Program". Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research. 14 (1). Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  8. ↑ Darden, Christine (September 11, 1998). "An Overview of NASA's HSR Program: Environmental Issues and Economic Concerns" (PDF). European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences.
  9. ↑ ""When Computers Wore Skirts:" Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and the "West Computers" | American Institute of Physics". www.aip.org. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  10. ↑ Atkinson, Joe (2015-08-24). "From Computers to Leaders: Women at NASA Langley". Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  11. ↑ Atkinson, Joe (2015-08-24). "From Computers to Leaders: Women at NASA Langley". Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  12. ↑ "More Than 40 Take the Buyout, Retire". The Researcher News. April 4, 2007. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  13. ↑ Buckley, Cara (2016-09-05). "On Being a Black Female Math Whiz During the Space Race". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  14. ↑ "CANDACE AWARD RECIPIENTS 1982-1990, Page 2". National Coalition of 100 Black Women. Archived from the original on March 14, 2003.
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