Christine Darden

Christine Darden
Christine Darden in Langley's Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel in 1975. Credit: NASA
Born
Christine Mann

September 10, 1942 (1942-09-10) (age 81)
Monroe, North Carolina, U.S.
Alma materHampton University
Virginia State University
George Washington University
Known forTechnical Leader of NASA's Sonic Boom Group
AwardsDr. A. T. Weathers Technical Achievement Award, 1985
Senior Executive Career Development Fellowship, 1994
Candace Award for Science and Technology from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1987
Scientific career
FieldsAeronautical engineering

Christine Darden (born September 10, 1942, as Christine Mann) is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a Ph.D. in engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service.

Darden is one of the researchers featured in the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), a history of some of the influential African-American women mathematicians and engineers at NASA in the mid-20th century, by Margot Lee Shetterly.[1]

In 2019, Darden was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.[2]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference hidden was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "H.R.1396 - Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act". Congress.gov. Retrieved 9 November 2019.