Katherine Johnson (1918-2020).

Katherine Johnson, a mathematician for NASA and its predecessor agency, passed away on 24 February at age 101. She and women like her worked unseen for decades to ensure America's success in the space race. The 2016 movie Hidden Figures finally brought her story to light. The recognition of Katherine's contributions to aeronautics and to America's ventures into space is well deserved, as she and her African American colleagues did vital work while facing Jim Crow barriers in nearly every aspect of their lives. Katherine, the youngest child of Joshua and Joylette Coleman, was born on 26 August 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The state had been part of the Union during the Civil War, but in every way that mattered it was part of the segregated South. Where the Colemans lived, education for Black children only extended through grade school, so Joshua rented a house more than 100 miles away to give his children the opportunity to attend the laboratory school at West Virginia Collegiate Institute (later West Virginia State College), a historically Black public land-grant institution established by the second Morrill Act. In 1933, at the age of 15, Katherine enrolled as a college freshman. She graduated summa cum laude in 1937 with a double major in mathematics and French. Following the path often taken by Black, college-educated women of her generation, Katherine became a teacher. The possibility of using her education in mathematics in any other career was unimaginable, although her professor did encourage and prepare her to pursue graduate study. An opportunity for graduate work came along when she was among those selected to integrate all-White West Virginia University after a Supreme Court decision mandated equal access to graduate educational opportunities. However, after one summer at the university in 1940, Katherine chose not to continue. Recently married, she stepped away to assume the role of wife and mother. In 1952, through family, Katherine learned of and seized an opportunity to apply her mathematical skills at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, a research center of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, NASA's predecessor). During World War II and the ensuing Cold War, NACA needed the skills of female mathematicians (“human computers”) to support the work of their engineers. With executive orders urging desegregation, the all-Black West Area computing group came onboard, joining the all-White East Area computing group in providing that mathematical power. At that time, women in government experienced economic inequality—in title, salary, and limited opportunities for promotion. Meanwhile, Black Americans in the segregated South faced educational, social, and economic inequities. And yet, on the strength of her mathematical abilities, Katherine was considered an equal within the community of engineers and scientists with whom she worked. Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book on which the Hidden Figures movie was based, referred to this paradox as a “triumph of meritocracy.” The Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a blistering pace of work for the engineers, scientists, and mathematicians charged with bolstering American pride in space. Long hours and the agency's demand for results were layered atop increasing family responsibilities. Katherine's husband, James Goble, had died in 1956, leaving her carrying the added weight of single parenting. In 1959, she married Jim Johnson and published her first research report under the name Katherine G. Johnson. That report and her subsequent work developing precise trajectory calculations for NASA's early human spaceflights were essential to establishing the United States as the leading spacefaring nation. Electronic computers were just being introduced into the space program, and their results were not always reliable. The human computers were there to backstop the machines. In the early 1960s, she worked on lunar orbits. Her contribution was crucial in helping to realize President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon. I never had the privilege of meeting Katherine, except in the pages of Shetterly's book, which provides incredible insight into the gifted and confident yet understated mathematician whom astronaut John Glenn was prepared to trust with his life. I attended a panel at the 2017 Emerging Researchers National Conference featuring Shetterly; her father, Robert B. Lee III, a former Langley climate scientist; and “hidden figure” and aeronautical engineer Christine Darden. The panelists' discussions provided insight into NASA's early days and the contributions of pioneering minority and female mathematicians and engineers, pieces of the early history and public face of the agency that had been missing until recently. The 950 attendees at that session included students from 52 historically Black colleges and universities. Katherine's experience of being the first, the only, or among the few who looked like her in a given professional setting was strikingly familiar to us. We were all moved by the stories of triumph over adversity. In 2015 Katherine was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. In 2016 she received a Silver Snoopy Award from astronaut Leland Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. In November 2019, by way of bipartisan legislation, Johnson and other hidden figures of NASA were honored with Congressional Gold Medals. The girl who loved to count became the woman whose aptitude and passion for mathematics helped propel the space ambitions of the United States. Katherine's story and those of other hidden figures have been embraced in popular culture and by those of us working to diversify science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. But there are other lessons to be learned: Her story demonstrates why we must work to provide excellent education and opportunities for all. It also elucidates the importance of policy interventions and laws in sustaining those opportunities. Katherine Johnson earned her place in the pantheon of America's space heroes; she and the other women who contributed to the country's path to the heavens are hidden no more.