Known for her work for IBM and the United States Space Technology Laboratories, she was among the first women of African heritage to earn a mathematics Ph.D. from an American university.
After graduating from Washington D.C.'s Dunbar High school as class valedictorian, she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Smith College in Massachusetts. She later earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University.
A professor as well as a computer programmer and Mathematician, she taught at Fisk University, California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of Texas at Tyler.
She was raised in Washington, D.C. by her aunt and mother.
She was a contemporary of Hungarian Mathematician Imre Lakatos.
