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Evelyn Boyd Granville, one of the first Black American women to earn a PhD in mathematics, wrote computer programs at IBM that calculated orbits for Vanguard and Mercury, the early US satellite and crewed spaceflight projects. She later worked on the Apollo programme.

Evelyn Boyd Granville

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The story behind the card

Granville grew up in Washington, D.C., studied mathematics and physics at Smith College and earned her doctorate at Yale in 1949. Among Black American women, only Euphemia Lofton Haynes, in 1943, had earned a mathematics PhD before her; Marjorie Lee Browne finished hers the same year. Top academic posts were closed to Black women, so she taught at Fisk University, then joined IBM in 1956. At its Vanguard Computing Center in Washington she turned the mathematics of orbits into computer programs, and she later worked on trajectory calculations for Apollo at North American Aviation. From 1967 she was a professor at California State University, Los Angeles, co-wrote a textbook on mathematics for teachers and ran maths enrichment programmes for young children. She died in 2023, aged 99.

Türkçe oku
Matematik doktorası alan ilk Siyah Amerikalı kadınlardan Evelyn Boyd Granville, IBM'de ABD'nin ilk uydu ve insanlı uzay uçuşu projeleri olan Vanguard ve Mercury için yörünge hesaplayan bilgisayar programları yazdı. Daha sonra Apollo programında da çalıştı.

Granville, Washington'da büyüdü, Smith College'da matematik ve fizik okudu ve 1949'da Yale'de doktorasını tamamladı. Siyah Amerikalı kadınlar arasında ondan önce matematik doktorası alan tek kişi 1943'te Euphemia Lofton Haynes'ti; Marjorie Lee Browne da aynı yıl doktorasını bitirdi. Üst düzey akademik görevlerin kapısı Siyah kadınlara kapalı olduğundan Fisk Üniversitesi'nde ders verdi, ardından 1956'da IBM'e geçti. Şirketin Washington'daki Vanguard Hesaplama Merkezi'nde yörünge matematiğini bilgisayar programlarına dönüştürdü; daha sonra North American Aviation'da Apollo için yörünge hesapları üzerinde çalıştı. 1967'den itibaren California Eyalet Üniversitesi'nde (Los Angeles) profesör olarak çalıştı, öğretmenler için bir matematik ders kitabını birlikte yazdı ve küçük çocuklara yönelik matematik programları düzenledi. 2023'te, 99 yaşında öldü.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Evelyn Boyd Granville
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