![]() She taught in rural Virginia and rural West Virginia schools. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Katherine’s first job was an elementary school teacher. #Katherine johnson nasa full#She earned a full scholarship that included tuition, room and board and graduated at age 18 summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Science degree in French and mathematics from West Virginia State College. As an early math prodigy, she skipped through grades to graduate from high school at age 14. He enrolled Katherine and her older siblings in a school 125 miles away from home since the local schools only offered classes to African Americans through the eighth grade. Even though he quit school after the sixth grade, he considered education of paramount importance. Her father was a farmer and worked extra jobs as a janitor and her mother was a teacher. Katherine Johnson was born in 1918, to a poor family in West Virginia. ![]() A pioneer in the space industry, Johnson witnessed and played a critical role in some of the most historic moments of American space flight. There are many inspirational stories in this vein, but perhaps none as inspirational as the story of Katherine Johnson, a woman who transcended race and gender to become the first black woman to work as a research mathematician and physicist for NASA in 1953. The twentieth century was a time of minorities transcending traditional boundaries. Katherine Johnson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 6, is pleased to honor Katherine Johnson with the Science Lifetime Achievement award for her creativity and pioneering work and accomplishments in space flight. Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020. Johnson in Hampton, Virginia and has three daughters Constance, Joylette and Kathy. In 2006, Johnson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from Capitol College of Laurel, Maryland. She also received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the State University of New York in Farmingdale in 1998 and in 1999, was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year by West Virginia State College. Johnson has co-authored twenty-six scientific papers and has a historically unique listing as a female co-author in a peer-reviewed NASA report. She received the NASA Langely Research Center Special Achievement Award in 1971, 1980, 1984, 19. Johnson has been the recipient of NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award and NASA’s Apollo Group Achievement Award. Johnson also verified the mathematics behind John Glenn’s orbit around the Earth in 1962 and calculated the flight trajectory for Apollo 11’s flight to the moon in 1969. Upon leaving The Flight Mechanics Branch, Johnson went on to join the Spacecraft Controls Branch where she calculated the flight trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space in 1959. NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. Her knowledge made her invaluable to her superiors and her assertiveness won her a spot in previously all-male meetings. Johnson was assigned to the all-male flight research division. In 1953, she joined Langley Research Center (LaRC) as a research mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). However, family issues kept her from completing the required courses.Īfter college, Johnson began teaching in elementary and high schools in Virginia and West Virginia. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to enroll in the mathematics program. In 1940, she attended West Virginia University to obtain a graduate degree. degree in mathematics, created a special course in analytic geometry specifically for Johnson. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. ![]() degree in French and mathematics in 1932 from West Virginia State University (formerly West Virginia State College). She attended West Virginia State High School and graduated from high school at age fourteen. Her father moved Johnson’s family to Institute, West Virginia, which was 125 miles away from the family home so that Johnson and her siblings could attend school. From a young age, Johnson enjoyed mathematics and could easily solve mathematical equations. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor. Mathematician and computer scientist Katherine Johnson was born on Augin White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to Joylette and Joshua Coleman. ![]()
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