KATHERINE

JOHNSON
By 10F Amazon House
A Brief
Introduction
• Katherine Coleman Goble
Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February
24, 2020) was an African American
physicist and mathematician.

• She was known for her work on the

United States' aeronautics and space
programs where she worked with the
early application of digital electronic
computers at NASA.
INTERVIEW
WITH MS.
KATHERINE
JOHNSON
EARLY LIFE

• Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many
people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked
Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life.

• As a young girl, Katherine loved to count. She counted everything. She would count the number of steps she took to the
road. She counted the steps into church. She even counted the forks and plates when she washed the dishes.

• Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918, her intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her
ahead several grades in school. 

• Katherine loved to learn. She loved learning math the most. Katherine went through school quickly. She started high school
when she was just 10 years old!

• Soon she began taking classes to become a mathematician. She learned how to solve big problems by using math, especially
geometry. Katherine studied hard.
Education…
• At 15, she enrolled in the West Virginia State
College (now called West Virginia State University),
where she found a mentor in math professor W.
W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African
American to earn a PhD in mathematics.

• She graduated at age 18, with highest honors in

1937 and took a job teaching at a black public
school in Virginia.  

• Beginning in the late 1930s, Johnson taught

math and French at schools in Virginia and West
Virginia.

West Virginia State University

The
‘Computer’
• In 1952, Johnson learned that the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA) was hiring African American
women to serve as "computers;" namely,
people who performed and checked
calculations for technological
developments.

• Johnson had applied; however those

positions were taken. But when she re-
applied the following year, she was
accepted for a position at Langley Research
Centre in Hampton, Virginia.

Katherine at work
A unique mind and intense
dedication
• Johnson not only proved adept at her calculations, she displayed a curiosity and
assertiveness that caught her superiors by surprise. "The women did what they were told to
do” she recalled. “They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. I asked questions; I
wanted to know why."

• After only two weeks, Johnson was transferred from the African American computing pool
to Langley's flight research division, where she talked her way into meetings and earned
additional responsibilities.

• She achieved success despite difficulties at home: In 1956, her husband died of a brain
tumour.
• In 1958, after NACA was reformulated into the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), Johnson was among the people charged with determining how to get
a human into space and back. The following year she remarried, to decorated Navy and Army
officer James A. Johnson.

• For Johnson, calculating space flight came down to the basics of geometry: "The early
trajectory was a parabola, and it was easy to predict where it would be at any point," she said.
"Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were NASA
trying to compute when it should start. I said, 'Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and
where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off .’ " As a result,
the task of plotting the path for Alan Shepard's 1961 journey to space, the first in American
Pioneer
history, fell on her shoulders.

• The next challenge was to send a man in orbit around Earth. This involved far more difficult
calculations, to account for the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies, and by then NASA had
begun using electronic computers. Yet, the job wasn't considered complete until Johnson was
summoned to check the work of the machines, providing the go-ahead to propel John Glenn
 into successful orbit in 1962.
More at NASA
• While the work of electronic computers took on increased importance at NASA,
Johnson remained highly valuable for her unwavering accuracy. She performed
calculations for the historic 1969 Apollo 11 trip to the moon, and the following
year, when Apollo 13 experienced a malfunction in space, her contributions to
contingency procedures helped ensure its safe return.

• Johnson continued to serve as a key asset for NASA, helping to develop its Space
Shuttle program and Earth Resources Satellite, until her retirement in 1986.
 Awards and Legacy
• Johnson was honoured with an array of awards for her ground-breaking work. Among them are the 1967 NASA Lunar Orbiter
Spacecraft and Operations team award, and the National Technical Association’s designation as its 1997 Mathematician of the
Year. 
 
• Additionally, she earned honorary degrees from SUNY Farmingdale, Maryland's Capitol College, Virginia's Old Dominion
University and West Virginia University.
 
• In November 2015, President Barack Obama presented Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 
 
• Margot Lee Shetterly's 2016 book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped
Win the Space Race celebrated the little-known story of Johnson and her fellow African American computers.
(It was also turned into an Oscar-nominated feature film, Hidden Figures (2016), starring actress Taraji P. Henson as Johnson.)
 • A year later, in September 2017, 99-year-old Johnson was
honoured by NASA, with the dedication of a new research
building which is named after her — the Katherine G.
Johnson Computational Research Facility.
 
• But before all of that, Johnson's work went largely
unrecognized. Around the office in the 1960s, she and her
Accomplishments colleagues were called as "computers in skirts" and worked
in a segregated facility.

• Praise for their work was certainly overdue, but Johnson

resisted taking full credit for the Computer Pool's
accomplishments. "We always worked as a team," she said
in a 2010 interview. "It's never just one person."
DEATH
Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020. She was 101 years old.
THANK YOU