The launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957 made history and the United States hurried to catch up. After two weeks, Johnson left the pool of computers to join the flight research division where she analyzed data from flight tests. The West computing section was comprised of a group of African American women who manually carried out complex mathematical calculations and data analysis for NASA’s various teams. The Langley office was still segregated at the time, and Johnson therefore worked as a computer in the West Computing section, which was headed by Dorothy Vaughan - fellow trail blazer, mathematician, and computer programmer who became NASA’s first African American supervisor in 1949. It wasn’t until 1953 that she joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley laboratory, which would later become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Some biographical sources indicate that the environment at West Virginia University was less welcoming, and she found it difficult to continue with her studies as a research mathematician. This in itself is a trail blazing, once in a lifetime accomplishment, but Johnson was only getting started.Īfter her first session, she decided to leave school to start a family with her husband, eventually returning to teaching public school students. In 1939, when West Virginia College became an integrated school, she was hand-picked along with two other male students to be the first African American students to enroll in the university’s graduate program, studying mathematics. in mathematics, and graduated summa cum laude at the age of 18. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. She later attended West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) where she studied mathematics under the mentorship of Professor W. Her family relocated to Institute, West Virginia when the time came for her to attend high school, as White Sulfur Springs did not have an African American high school. Thank you for paving the way for us all.Katherine Johnson at her desk at NASA Langley Research Center in 1962. Although we mourn her loss, we also celebrate her life and legacy she leaves behind. Johnson will forever be remembered by her courage, intelligence, bravery, and dedication to the world of aerospace. Johnson Computational Research Facility Building in her honor in 2017. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson with the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also named Mathematician of the Year in 1997 by the National Technical Association and holds an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the State University of New York and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Capitol College in Maryland and Old Dominion University in Virginia. We had to go back to geometry and figure all of this stuff out.”Īfter 33 years of service, Johnson retired from the agency in 1986 after receiving many awards including NASA Lunar Orbiter Award and three NASA Special Achievement Awards. “We wrote our own textbook, because there was no other text about space,” she said in a NASA article. In 1958, she became involved in the Space Task Force where she served as a mathematician. I’m as good as anybody, but no better,” she said in a NASA press release. “I didn’t have time for that… don’t have a feeling of inferiority.
In the midst of racial and gender oppression, Johnson didn’t let discrimination stop her from achieving her dreams of becoming a research mathematician. She then went on to work at what is now known as NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Born in 1918 - in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia - Johnson defied the odds and went on to graduate from West Virginia State College with highest honors in 1937. The details of her accomplishments were highlighted in the 2017 box office hit, “Hidden Figures.”Īs an African American aerospace pioneer, Johnson was a trailblazer for racial equity and an advocate for STEM education. Johnson was a Black mathematician who calculated the flight path for NASA’s first space mission and the first moon landing. NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson, has passed away at 101-years-old.
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