Melba Roy Mouton (1929–1990) was an American mathematician who served as Assistant Chief of Research Programs at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

's Trajectory and Geodynamics Division in the 1960s and headed a group of NASA mathematicians called "computers". She served as Head Mathematician for Echo Satellites 1 and 2 before becoming Head Computer Programmer and then Program Production Section Chief at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Biography

Mouton was born in 1929, in Fairfax, Virginia to Rhodie and Edna Chloe. She graduated from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

in 1950 with a master's degree in mathematics, after receiving a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in physics. While at Howard, Mouton was president of the Kelly Miller Chapter of Future Teachers of America and a member of the NAACP, the Mathematics Club, and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She also was on the Dean's Honor Roll for four years, and was selected for the 1949-195
Who’s Who among Students in American Universities and Colleges
She started working for NASA in 1959, after working for the

Army Map Service The Army Map Service (AMS) was the military cartography, cartographic agency of the United States Department of Defense from 1941 to 1968, subordinated to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On September 1, 1968, the AMS was redesignated th ...

and the

Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal Statistical System of the United States, U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the Americans, Ame ...

. The following year,

Echo 1 Project Echo was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, were metalized balloon satellites acting as passive reflectors of microwave signals. Communication sign ...

was put into orbit, and Mouton led a team of NASA mathematicians (known as "computers") in tracking its orbit. While at Godddard, Mouton was an instructor for a series of seminars on

A Programming Language APL (named after the book ''A Programming Language'') is a programming language developed in the 1960s by Kenneth E. Iverson. Its central datatype is the multidimensional array. It uses a large range of special graphic symbols to represent mo ...

held at Watson Research Labs. In a NASA symposium, she published a paper about the importance of investing in thorough, descriptive program documentation for projects which are to be maintainable over time. She was also prominently featured alongside some of her African American colleagues in an advertisement in the Afro American designed to spotlight NASA's diversity. Mouton received both an Apollo Achievement Award and an Exceptional Performance Award from NASA before she retired in 1973. Mouton had three children and was married twice, first to Wardell Roy and later to Webster Mouton. She died in

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...

on June 25, 1990 of a brain tumor at the age of 61.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mouton, Melba Roy 1920s births 1990 deaths Deaths from brain tumor Howard University alumni NASA people People from Fairfax, Virginia 20th-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians African-American mathematicians 20th-century women mathematicians Mathematicians from Virginia Computer scientists American women computer scientists American computer scientists African-American computer scientists 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people