‘Hidden Figures’ author at Quinnipiac Wednesday

HAMDEN » The success of the movie “Hidden Figures” makes Wednesday’s lecture at Quinnipiac University an intriguing option, and it’s free and open to the public.

Best-selling author Margot Lee Shetterly will discuss her book, “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race,” when she delivers Quinnipiac University’s annual Black History Month lecture at 7 p.m. at Burt Kahn Court (275 Mount Carmel Ave.).

Shetterly will share the story of how black “human computers” used math to change their own lives — and America’s future, a QU release points out. Against the rich backdrop of World War II, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Era and the fight for gender equality, the lecture will cover the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden — mathematicians at NASA during the golden age of the space race.

The book was adapted into the biographical drama film released last month and starring Taraji P. Henson as Johnson, the African-American physicist, space scientist and mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. The film also features Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons.

For more information about Shetterly’s lecture, call 203-582-8652.

CONTRIBUTED Margot Lee Shetterly