Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson (1918-2020) was an American mathematician and one of the first African-American women to work at NASA as a scientist.
She is noted for her calculations of orbital mechanics that were critical to the success of the first crewed space flights by the United States where she worked on flights with Alan Shepard and John Glenn calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths. She also provided crucial calculations to the Space Shuttle program and preparations for uncrewed missions to the planet Mars. She has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
A number of institutions have been named in her honor, she was the subject of 2016's award-winning film Hidden Figures where she was played by Taraji P. Henson, and was the focus of the "Space Race" episode of NBC's documentary series Timeless. She has also been immortalized as a Barbie in the "Inspiring Women" series, and as a Lego minifigure in the "Women of NASA" set.
==References==
* A photo of Johnson (pictured) features among a number of inspirational women on Doctor Doc's Shero Wall in Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock.
*A 2024 Sesame Street social media post celebrating historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in honor of Black History Month notes Katherine Johnson as an HBCU graduate and depicts her in Muppet-fied form.@sesamestreet on Instagram, February 2, 2024
==Sources==
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Category:Historical References
Category:Space