Annie Easley
Hired as a 'human computer' in 1955, she became a software developer on the Centaur rocket — the upper stage whose descendants are still leaving Earth today.
Annie Easley was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1933. In 1955 she read a newspaper article about twin sisters working as “human computers” at the lab that would become NASA's Glenn Research Center — and two weeks later she had the job, one of only four African-American employees there. Her 34-year career began doing complex calculations by hand.
When machines replaced human computers, Easley evolved with the technology, becoming a programmer in Fortran and SOAP. Her code supported the Centaur upper-stage rocket — the high-energy workhorse that boosted probes and satellites out of Earth orbit — and energy research that contributed to battery technology used in early hybrid vehicles.
Centaur became one of the most successful rocket stages in history, and its direct descendants still fly: the Centaur V powers United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket today. Easley also served as an equal employment opportunity counselor at NASA, tutoring students and confronting the discrimination she herself faced — “If I can't work with you, I will work around you,” she said. She died in 2011.
Why You Should Know Them
A Black woman hired in 1955 to do math by hand ended up writing software whose lineage is still launching missions in 2026. When a Vulcan Centaur lifts off, a thread of her work goes with it.