BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " KATHERINE JOHNSON " IS A PHYSICIST, SPACE SCIENTIST AND MATHEMATICIAN- ONE OF THE BEST IN HER FIELD : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

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Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson
Born	August 26, 1918 (age 96) White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, West Virginia, U.S.
Residence	Hampton, Virginia
Nationality	American
Fields	Mathematics, computer science
Institutions	NACA, NASA
Alma mater	West Virginia State University
Known for	contributions to America's aeronautics and space advances

Katherine Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an African-American physicist, space scientist, and mathematician who contributed to America's aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she calculated the trajectory for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon.

Education and early work

	Katherine Johnson (As Told By NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Ellen Stofan) MENU 0:00
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Katherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to Joylette and Joshua Coleman. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor. From a young age, Johnson enjoyed mathematics and could easily solve mathematical equations. Her father moved Johnson’s family to Institute, West Virginia, which was 125 miles away from the family home so that Johnson and her siblings could attend school. She attended West Virginia State High School and graduated from high school at age fourteen. A year later, she was a student at West Virginia State University (formerly West Virginia State College). In 1936, at age 18, Johnson graduated Summa Cum Laude with Bachelor's of Science degrees in French and Mathematics. At that time, Dr. W.W. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. degree in mathematics, created a special course in analytic geometry of space specifically for Johnson. In 1940, she attended West Virginia University to obtain a graduate degree. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to enroll in the mathematics program. However, family issues kept her from completing the required courses. After college, Johnson began teaching in elementary and high schools in Virginia and West Virginia.

NASA

Dissatisfied with her life as a teacher, Johnson began looking for a career in a mathematical field. While at a family gathering in the early 1950s, a relative of Johnson's mentioned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which later became known as NASA, was looking for new workers. They were specifically looking for African-American females to work as “computers” in their Guidance and Navigation Department. In 1953, Katherine was offered the job, which she immediately accepted.

According to oral history archived by the National Visionary Leadership Project:^[1]

"At first she worked in a pool of women performing math calculations. Katherine has referred to the women in the pool as virtual `computers who wore skirts.' Their main job was to read the data from the black boxes of planes and carry out other precise mathematical tasks. Then one day, Katherine (and a colleague) were temporarily assigned to help the all-male flight research team. Katherine's knowledge of analytic geometry helped make quick allies of male bosses and colleagues to the extent that,'they forgot to return me to the pool.' While the racial and gender barriers were always there, Katherine says she ignored them. Katherine was assertive, asking to be included in editorial meetings (where no women had gone before.) She simply told people she had done the work and that she belonged."^[2][3]

From 1953 through 1958, Johnson worked as a computer mathematician. From 1958 until she retired in 1983, she worked as an aerospace technologist. She began her work in the all-male Flight Mechanics Branch and later moved to the Spacecraft Controls Branch. She calculated the trajectory for the space flight of Alan Shepard^{[citation needed]}, the firstAmerican in space, in 1959. She also calculated the launch window for his 1961 Mercury mission.^{[citation needed]} She plotted backup navigational charts for astronauts in case of electronic failures.^{[citation needed]} In 1962, when NASA used computers for the first time to calculate John Glenn's orbit around Earth, officials called on her to verify the computer's numbers.^[4] Ms. Johnson later worked directly with real computers. Her ability and reputation for accuracy helped to establish confidence in the new technology. She calculated the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon.^{[citation needed]} During the moon landing, Johnson was at a meeting in the Pocono Mountains. She and a few others crowded around a small television screen watching the first steps on the moon. In 1970, Johnson worked on Apollo 13's mission to the Moon. Once the mission was aborted, Johnson's work on backup procedures and charts helped safely return the crew to Earth four days later. Later in her career, she worked on the Space Shuttle program, the Earth Resources Satellite, and on plans for a mission to Mars.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

In total, Johnson co-authored 26 scientific papers, of which only one could be found in 2005.^[2] (NASA maintains a listing of Johnson's most significant articles^[5] with links to its archival search tool to find others.) The practice in 1960 would have been not to list the female contributors as formal co-authors, so that she was listed as an author in a peer-reviewed NASA report is significant:

NASA TND-233, “The Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite over a Selected Earth Position” 1960. Authors: T.H. Skopinski, Katherine G. Johnson^[6]

Johnson's social impact as a pioneer in space science and computing may be seen both from the honors she has received and the number of times her story is presented as arole model.^{[5][7][8][9][10][11]} Since 1979 (before she retired from NASA), Johnson's biography has had an honored place in lists of African-Americans in Science and Technology.^[12][13]

Personal life

In 1939, she married James Francis Goble and started a family. The Gobles had three daughters: Constance, Joylette, and Katherine. In 1956, James Goble died of an inoperable brain tumor. In 1959, she married Lt. Colonel James A. Johnson and resumed her career as a teacher. She sang in the choir of Carver Presbyterian Church for fifty years.

Johnson and her husband live in Hampton, Virginia, and enjoy spending time with six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Ms. Johnson still plays piano, bridge, and solves puzzles.

Johnson is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.