FUN FACT While the movie "Hidden Figures" focuses on Katherine
Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who were her
predecessors, Darden's work and career path are also a testament to
the contributions of African American women in STEM fields.
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She contributed to the development of new technologies for aircraft
design, including high-lift wing design and flap design. Her research
laid the groundwork for NASA's experimental plane (X-plane) research,
which began in 2016.
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Darden joined NASA's Langley Research Center in 1967 as a data
analyst, one of the last of the "human computers" - female
mathematicians, many of them African Americans, who performed complex
calculations and wrote programs for engineers.
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