Dr. Katherine G. Johnson

Katherine G. Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, on August 26, 1918, the youngest of four siblings. She began school in the second grade when she was four, loved to learn, and counted everything. At fourteen, she entered West Virginia State College, where a professor suggested that she become a research mathematician. She graduated summa cum laude at eighteen with degrees in mathematics and French, then broke gender and racial barriers as one of three African American graduate students who integrated West Virginia University. In 1953, she joined NACA/NASA, where she worked as a human computer in an all-female group performing calculations for space flights. As a Principal Research Mathematician, she calculated precise orbits and trajectories for Alan Shepard's historic orbits and the first flights to and from the moon. Neil Armstrong and John Glenn were said to have requested her calculations to verify those of early computers. Her assertiveness won her a place in meetings with male engineers, and her mathematical ability and trademark precision secured her position in design meetings that previously had been all-white and all-male. A Hampton resident since 1957, she is a wife, mother of three daughters, and active in church, community, and civic organizations. She is a life member of the NAACP and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She retired from NASA in 1986, received several honorary doctorate degrees and many honors, and on November 24, 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Hampton, Virginia · United States