Katherine Johnson

**Katherine Globe Johnson** (1918-present) is an author and mathematician most known for her trajectory calculation for John Glenn’s mission into space.

### **Biography:**

Katherine Coleman Globe Johnson was born on August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Her family consisted of two older brothers and one older sister; both of her parents were of the working class: her mother, a teacher and her father, a farmer and a worker at the nearest hotel in their town. Her father encouraged his children to continue a higher education, which at the time meant both high school and college. To show how important school meant to their father, the Coleman family moved to their school during the school year but during the summer, moved back to the farm.

Katherine attended elementary school where her love for math began to flourish. At such a young age, Katherine skipped a few grades and graduated West Virginia State High School at the age of fourteen. She then was admitted into the West Virginia College at the age of fifteen and her college career took off. After debating whether French/ English or Math was going to be her declared major during her second year of college, one day while walking on campus, Johnson was recognized by a professor, Mrs. Lacey, who told her to enroll into her class and if she did not, then Mrs. Lacey will “come after” her. Katherine’s response to this was “yes ma’am” with no questions asked. She enrolled and found that her love for college math was the same for high school math so she continued to take math courses. During her third semester, she enrolled into Dr. W.W. Schiefflin Claytor class, a “real young good-looking man”. Dr. Claytor mentioned to Katherine that she would be “a great research mathematician” one day. She did not know what the job of a research mathematician would do but she agreed to it anyway. In addition to this, Dr. Claytor told her that he would “have her ready” for when she does apply for a research mathematician job. Dr. Claytor added courses for Katherine to take (since she already finished all of the
courses the college had) and most of the time, she would be the only student. With the help from her professors, Katherine decided on majoring in both Mathematics and French; she later graduated West Virginia College with summa cum luade at the age of eighteen in 1937.

For two years, Katherine worked as an elementary school teacher at African American schools and in 1939, the president of the college went to speak with Katherine about a graduate program for African American students at the West Virginia University. “The University has agreed to desegregate their school and we’re to send them three good students. You are going this summer,” is what he said to her and she enrolled into the University. In doing so, she became the first African American female to attend this college. Unfortunately, she did not finish her graduate program because of her family situation; leaving her to go back to teaching.

In 1952, Katherine and her family were at a family gathering when a relative mentioned about a new sector at NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, opened for African American women “computers”. Katherine applied for the job, was not accepted due all positions full, but, she applied the following year, 1953, and started working that summer.

Katherine and her family moved to Newport News, Virginia, for her new position as a woman computer. She was one of thirteen African American women in this sector and there were no men in this sector. She worked for the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division. Here, she would analyze data from “flight test and investigation of a plane crash caused by wake turbulence”. Asking so many questions and completing the work she was given, it led her to become the “only woman to be pulled out of the pool to work on other programs”. In 1956, her husband passed away due to cancer and in 1959, she remarried to Colonel James A Johnson.

### **Most Known for:**

During the beginning of her career at NACA (the early 1950s), women were not "allowed to go into the meetings and briefings" that were held for the department. The women "knew their place" and questions were "not be asked". Johnson, being the assertive woman she was, asked questions and persisted into getting a chance to be in the meetings and briefing; finally one day, she approached a meeting and a male scientist told her she was not allowed. Johnson asked if "there was a law" and the scientist said no, so she walked right in. The men later became dependent upon Johnson and others like Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. They started breaking the misogynistic views the men had and the discrimination barriers that were there. In fact, in 1961, Katherine calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepherd’s mission and in the same year, began to work on John Glenn’s mission. Glenn did not want to enter into space without the correct calculations nor did he believe that a machine will give him the right coordinates, so he asked for Katherine to check before he went into space. Once Katherine confirmed the true coordinates, Glenn went on his mission and successfully came back down in the exact place he was needed to be.

### **Notable Work:**

* Some of her math is in *Notes on Space Technology, 1958*
* Coauthor of *Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout of Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position*
* *Hidden Figures, 2017*

### **Achievements and Awards:**

* NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award

* NASA’s Apollo Achievement Award

* 1971, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986- NASA Langley Research Center Special Achievement

* 1998- Honorary Doctor of Laws from the State University of New York
* 1999- Outstanding Alumnus of the Year from West Virginia State College
* 2006- Honorary Doctor of Science from Capitol College of Laurel
* 2010- Honorary Doctorate of Science from Old Dominion University
* 2014- De Pizan Honor from National Women’s History Museum
* 2015- National Center for Women and Information Technology Pioneer in Tech Award
* 2015- Presidential Medal of Freedom
* 2016- Silver Snoop Award from Leland Melvin (an astronaut)
* 2016- Astronomical Society of Pacific’s Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
* 2016- Presidential Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from West Virginia University
* 2017- Daughters of the American Revolution Medal of Honor
* 2017- Honored by NASA with her own building: Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in Hampton, Virginia

### **Sources:**

Deiss, H. (2013). *Katherine Johnson: A Lifetime of Stem. NASA.* Retrieved from: http://www.nasa.gov

Makers, H. (2012). *Katherine G. Johnson. The History Makers.* Retrieved from: http://www.thehistorymakers.org

Neufeld, M. (2017). *Katherine Johnson, Hidden Figures, and John Glenn Flight. Air and Space Museum.* Retrieved from: http://airandspace.si.edu

Pearlman, R. (2017) *Oscars Honor Real-Life NASA Hero Katherine Johnson, But Pass on Hidden Figures. Space.* Retrieved from: http://www.space.com

Shetterly, M. (2017). *Katherine Johnson Biography. NASA.* Retrieved from: http://www.nasa.gov

*Wave Vortex Research. NASA.* Retrieved from: http://nasa.gov

Wikipedia.com

Youtube Video Interviews:

https://youtu.be/FgW2kpNQ7BY

https://youtu.be/r8gJqKyIGhE

https://youtu.be/LDOH2TTdh74

https://youtu.be/Jb4gDurqKJw

https://youtu.be/IlXaTOGXPso

https://youtu.be/dvbVbLJeGXM

https://youtu.be/0TyVJBd8lYI

https://youtu.be/SjxVM5S\_gbA

https://youtu.be/LDOH2TTdh74

Space.com video: https://www.space.com/35841-oscars-honor-nasa-katherine-johnson-hidden-figures.html#ooid=lwanlqNTE6yuCDIfzup36NgEqK0-vB\_h