I was surprised how little I knew about the significant contributions to aviation that had happened right there in Hampton, Virginia.

How do we fill the need for technology workers, people who have computer skills and math and science skills? How do we get a more diverse science workforce? These are all issues - I would look at these documents that were from the '50s and '60s and '70s, and you'd swear they were written two weeks ago because the issues are the same.

I'm not a scientist or a mathematician.

It has been very rare to see a black woman as a protagonist. And also as three-dimensional people - mathematicians, mothers, wives, complicated people, not perfect.

I started to think of 'Hidden Figures' as the first part of a mid-century African-American trilogy.

Our next-door neighbour taught physics at Hampton University. Our church abounded with mathematicians. Supersonics experts held leadership positions in my mother's sorority, and electrical engineers sat on the board of my parents' college alumni associations.

Five of my father's seven siblings made their bones as engineers or technologists, and some of his best buddies - David Woods, Elijah Kent, Weldon Staton - carved out successful engineering careers at Langley.

My dad joined Langley in 1964 as a co-op student and retired in 2004 an internationally respected climate scientist.

As a callow 18-year-old leaving for college, I'd seen my home town as a mere launching pad for a life in worldlier locales, a place to be from rather than a place to be.

I guess it's inevitable that I would become somebody who would write about scientists.