She was the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. She quit one year later after becoming pregnant and chose to focus on her family life. In 1939, after marrying her first husband, James Goble, she left her teaching job and enrolled in a graduate math program. She took on a teaching job at a black public school in Marion, Virginia. Johnson was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She graduated summa cum laude in 1937, with degrees in mathematics and French, at age 18. Claytor added new mathematics courses just for Johnson. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African-American to receive a doctorate in mathematics. Several professors mentored her, including the chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King, who had guided Coleman throughout high school, and W. She took every course in mathematics offered by the College. Interview with West Virginia State University President Anthony Jenkins on Johnson's studies and career, October 21, 2019, C-SPANĪfter graduation from high school at the age of 14, Johnson matriculated at WVSC, an historically black college. The family split their time between Institute during the school year and White Sulphur Springs in the summer. Johnson was enrolled when she was ten years old. This school was on the campus of West Virginia State College (WVSC).
Because Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African-American students past the eighth grade, the Colemans arranged for their children to attend high school in Institute, West Virginia. Johnson showed strong mathematical abilities from an early age. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a lumberman, farmer, and handyman. Katherine Johnson was born as Creola Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to Joylette Roberta (née Lowe) and Joshua McKinley Coleman. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. In 2016, she was presented with the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was known as a "human computer" for her tremendous mathematical capability and ability to work with space trajectories with such little technology and recognition at the time. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
Katherine johnson nasa fun facts manual#
During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks.
In 2015, at age 97, Katherine Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.Katherine Johnson ( née Coleman Aug– February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. “I loved going to work every single day,” she says.
She retired in 1986, after thirty-three years at Langley. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Satellite, and authored or coauthored 26 research reports. When asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Katherine Johnson talks about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. The informational 2-day outreach event for high school girls from 150 schools addressed students’ questions about the field. In October 1964, Johnson attended a symposium on American Women in Science and Engineering sponsored by the the MIT Association of Women Students. Johnsonwas the physicist and mathematician whose calculations were critical to NASA missions sending astronauts into orbit and to the moon and whose story is chronicled in Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures.