Hello everyone and welcome to our second installation of the d-9 celebration for mobile math academy and we are going to be talking about mathematicians who are part of the divine nine as we celebrate d9 organizations founded in the month of january so this week we’re going to talk about
Mysore roars a delta sigma theta sorority incorporated aka um or alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated and a zeta phi beta sorority incorporated let’s get started all right first off let’s talk about what is the divine nine so the divine nine are sorority and fraternity organizations that fall under the governance of the national
Panhellenic council and the primary purpose and focus of the member organizations is community awareness and action through educational economic and cultural service activities so the very first mathematician we’re going to talk about is from my sorority delta sigma theta sorority incorporated founded january 13 1913 and we are going to talk about soror
Melba roy mutong now soro mutton was born january 1st 1929 in fairfax virginia she graduated from howard university in 1950 with a master’s degree in mathematics after receiving a bachelor’s degree in math with a minor in physics so while at howard um soro mouton was president of the
Kelly miller chapter of future teachers of america and a member of the naacp as well as the mathematics club all right she also was on a dean’s honor roll for four years and was selected for the 1949-1950 who’s who among students in american universities and colleges so she started working for nasa
In 1959 after working for the army map service and the census bureau so the following year echo 1 was put into orbit and soro mouton led a team of nasa mathematicians known as the computers that’s why i have these names on the screen here because um those computers
Were known and so they they were there to actually um track the orbit of the echo1 and so her role as assistant chief of research programs at nasa trajectory and geodynamics division meant that she was responsible for overseeing all of the human computers who were individuals creating and interpreting complex and sometimes
Long-winded calculations in order to make sure projections and communications were done correctly all right so some of these computers you may recognize and that’s why i have these names on the screen are um dorothy vaughn katherine johnson and mary jackson who were mathematicians and they’re members of the alpha kappa
Alpha sorority incorporated and you may recognize their names also from the movie hidden figures so soror mutong received both and apart and i’m going to talk a little bit more about aka but i just wanted to make sure that you understood the connection between sora mutton and the
Lovely women of aka who also were part of nasa so sora mouton received both an apollo achievement award and an exceptional performance award from nasa before she retired in 1973 all right she is the author of a motivational and training or automation in the proceedings of a 1970 symposium
And alt um automated methods of computer program documentation sora mootong had three children and she died june 25th 1990 in silver spring maryland so we celebrate this amazing mathematician of delta sigma theta sorority or incorporated melba roy mouton all right the next mathematician we’re going to talk about is
From the sorority of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated and i also want to mention again the amazing mathematicians who participated in nasa and actually had a huge contribution in nasa with mary jackson catherine johnson and dorothy vaughn they were all members of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated
And depicted in the movie hidden figures all right but let’s talk about dr gladys west so dr gladys west let’s talk about well aka was actually founded january 15 1908 on the campus of howard university as well so dr west dr gladys west was born october 27 1930 and
All of us use a gps right well guess what dr gladys west um whether you’re using using it to get driving directions from your iphone or tagging the location on instagram or using your gps um is part of our daily lives right well little known fact is that um the gps
Got its start in the mind of air force mathematician gladys west and she was born in 1930 and now let me get this right den witty county virginia if you’re out there and you’re from denwoody county virginia please forgive me if i mispronounce that they’re surrounded by sharecroppers farmers and tobacco factory workers
She decided early on that staying and working in rural virginia was not her future so although her family didn’t have money to send her to college her hard work paid off and she secured a scholarship to study at virginia state university by graduating from her high school as valedictorian in 1948
So dr west decided to major in math at virginia state university where she was also a member of alpha kappa alpha sorority after graduating with her bachelor’s degree dr west taught science and math in waverly virginia for two years before returning to vsu for her master’s degree in math
Which is what she actually received in 1955. all right the following year dr west was actually hired as a mathematician at the naval proving ground in dahlgren virginia it’s now called the naval surface warfare center where she analyzed satellite data which is pretty cool all right
She was one she was one of only four african-american employees at the time so dr west retired in 1998 after 14 years at dahlgren but didn’t slow down despite suffering a stroke only five months after retiring she worked on rebuilding her strength and recovering her lost mobility by
Taking classes at the local ymca ca with her husband who motivated by a big goal get this she went on to finish her remote phd program in public administration which she received from virginia tech in 2018 that’s awesome so we salute dr gladys west mathematician and member of alpha kappa
Alpha sorority ins incorporated all righty and the very next mathematician we’re going to talk about is from the sorority of zeta phi beta sorority incorporated which was founded january 16 1920 and we are gonna salute viola tyler goings so viola tyler goings was born august 29 1899 in flushing ohio
She is one of the founding members of zeta phi beta sorority incorporated which was established on the campus of howard university and a lifelong member of the organization on completion of her high school education she became a co-ed of howard university and after graduating from howard university with a teaching degree in math
She taught in smith north carolina and then she later accepted the position to teach at the annapolis high school in maryland later on she advanced her career and became an assistant principal at the cambridge high school in cambridge maryland we salute um viola tyler goings a member of zeta phi beta sorority incorporated
And she died no i’m sorry died march 9 1983 we salute her as another amazing mathematician of the divine nine and if you know of any mathematicians who are members of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated alpha kappa alpha or zeta phi beta sorority incorporated please leave us a comment on any of our
Socials and tag mobile math academy in the post on twitter we’re at mobile math so please check us out on all of our socials so that you can stay in touch with us and keep us informed of any mathematicians now the very next d9 mathematicians we’re going to celebrate we’re going to
Go all the way to september so we don’t have any other um we don’t have any other um founders days to celebrate so salute to all of our brothers and sisters in the divine nine who are celebrating their founders days shout out to you thank you for all that
You do in our community and we celebrate you alrighty so we will chat with you soon thank you for joining in and we’ll talk later bye
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