Katherine Johnson

Mathematician

• Born: August 26, 1918
• Birthplace: White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
• Died: February 24, 2020
• Place of death: Hampton, Virginia

Also known as: Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, Katherine G. Johnson, Katherine Coleman (birth name)

Education: West Virginia University, West Virginia State College

Significance: Working as a "human computer" for NASA in the 1950s and 1960s, Katherine Johnson performed calculations for missions that sent an astronaut into orbit around Earth and successfully landed humans on the moon.

Background

Katherine Johnson was born Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in West Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She is the daughter of Joshua and Joylette Coleman, who worked as a janitor and a teacher, respectively. Johnson was the youngest of four children. From an early age, she demonstrated a natural talent for numbers. She counted everything from the steps she took when walking to the dishes she washed while doing chores.

Johnson was very bright and breezed through school, skipping several grades. By the age of ten, she was ready to enroll as a high school freshman. At the time, many African Americans did not complete schooling past the eighth grade. Johnson's father encouraged her to continue her schooling. He moved the family to Institute, West Virginia, so Johnson could attend high school classes at nearby West Virginia Collegiate Institute. Johnson graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and enrolled in West Virginia State College (which later became West Virginia State University).

In 1937, at the age of eighteen, Johnson graduated with honors from West Virginia State College with degrees in mathematics and French. She then spent some time teaching at a black public school in Virginia. Until the mid-twentieth century, many states had segregation laws that required separate facilities for African Americans and whites. In 1939, however, West Virginia began to desegregate its graduate schools. Johnson was one of three black students selected to desegregate West Virginia University's (WVU) graduate school. However, after one semester of graduate school, Johnson withdrew from WVU to focus on raising her family.

NASA Career

In 1952, Johnson learned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was hiring African American women to fill positions in its West Area Computing Unit at Langley Research Center in Virginia. Johnson applied for a position as a "human computer." In a time before electronic computers existed, NACA, and later NASA, depended on human computers to perform complex calculations related to space travel. Dorothy Vaughan, the head of the West Area Computing Unit, hired Johnson in 1953.

Just two weeks after being hired, Johnson was assigned to work in the Flight Research Division, which was, at the time, all male. Johnson was the only woman from the computing division pulled to work directly with engineers on other projects. Johnson's assignment was supposed to be temporary, but she ended up staying in the Flight Research Division permanently.

One of Johnson's main roles during her early years at NASA was analyzing data from flight tests. Johnson had always had a curious mind and asked many questions. She quickly earned her colleagues' respect and soon found herself in regular attendance at important engineering meetings. In 1958, when NACA became NASA, Johnson continued to work in the Flight Research Division.

In 1961, Johnson performed a trajectory analysis for astronaut Alan Shepard's 1961 mission into space. Trajectory is the path that an object follows as it moves through space. Once Johnson knew when and where Shepard's spacecraft was supposed to land upon his return to Earth, she was able to work backwards to calculate when his launch should occur.

By 1962, NASA had begun using electronic computers—rather than human computers—to perform many calculations. However, when it was time for astronaut John Glenn to embark on his mission to orbit Earth that year, he insisted that his team "get the girl" (Johnson) to double-check all the electronic computers' calculations by hand. Johnson recalled years later that Glenn said he would only launch if the machines' calculations matched hers.

Johnson continued to work on important spaceflight missions for the remainder of her career at NASA. She contributed to some of the most well-known spaceflights in US history. In 1969, she calculated flight paths for the Apollo 11 mission, which resulted in the United States becoming the first nation to land astronauts on the moon. During that mission, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin also became the first humans to walk on the moon. In 1970, the spacecraft carrying the crew of the Apollo 13 mission experienced an explosion in space. As a result, the crew had to change its plan to land on the moon and instead orbit the moon and return to Earth. Johnson assisted in developing a plan to help the astronauts make a safe return. In later years, Johnson worked for the space shuttle program. She retired from NASA in 1986.

Impact

From the time she was a young girl, Johnson broke both racial and gender barriers. During a period when many African Americans stopped their schooling after eighth grade, Johnson finished high school and college by the age of eighteen and later went on to desegregate the graduate school at West Virginia University. When she began her career at NASA, her first assignment was working in the all-male Flight Research Division. In 1960, she became the first woman in the Flight Research Division to receive credit as an author on a research report. She later assisted with some of the agency's most historic missions, including the 1969 moon landing. As a result of her many contributions, she received honorary degrees from several education institutions. On November 24, 2015, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama.

Personal Life

Johnson married James Francis Goble in 1939, and the couple had three daughters: Constance, Joylette, and Kathy. Goble died of cancer in 1956. Three years later, Johnson remarried a veteran of the Korean War, Lieutenant Colonel James A. Johnson. In 2016, author Margot Lee Shetterly's book Hidden Figures, along withan Oscar-nominated film of the same name, shared the story of Johnson and her fellow human computers at NASA. Actress Taraji P. Henson portrayed Johnson in the film.

Bibliography

Bolden, Charles. "Katherine Johnson, the NASA Mathematician Who Advanced Human Rights with a Slide Rule and Pencil." Vanity Fair, Sept. 2016, www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/08/katherine-johnson-the-nasa-mathematician-who-advanced-human-rights. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Edwing, Jack. "Johnson, Katherine G." African Americans, Vol. 3, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2011, pp. 876–77.

"Katherine G. Johnson." Biography.com, 19 Aug. 2017, www.biography.com/people/katherine-g-johnson-101016. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

"Katherine G. Johnson." Makers, www.makers.com/katherine-g-johnson. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Loff, Sarah. "Mathematician Katherine Johnson at Work." NASA, 25 Feb. 2016, www.nasa.gov/image-feature/mathematician-katherine-johnson-at-work. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Shetterly, Margot Lee. "Katherine Johnson Biography." NASA, 3 Aug. 2017, www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Smith, Yvette. "Katherine Johnson: The Girl Who Loved to Count." NASA, 25 Nov. 2015, www.nasa.gov/feature/katherine-johnson-the-girl-who-loved-to-count. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Wild, Flint. "Who Is Katherine Johnson?" NASA, 1 Jan. 2017, www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-is-katherine-johnson-k4. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.