Katherine Johnson

Biography• Date of Birth: August 26, 1918• Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV• Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937• Hired by NASA: June 1953• Retired from NASA: 1986• Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Taraji P. Henson

Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Johnson’s intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school. By thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in Mathematics. Katherine graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia.

Personal Life • In 1939 she married James Francis Goble with whom he had three

daughters: Constance, Joylette and Katherine.• In 1956 James Goble died of an inoperable brain tumor. In 1959 he

married the Lieutenant Colonel James A. Johnson continued his career at NASA.

• She participated in the same Carver presviteriana church choir for 50 years and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Career• Not content with teaching, Coleman Goble Johnson decided to make a

career in mathematics. At a family reunion, a relative mentioned that the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), then developed at NASA, was offering jobs. In particular, they were looking for African-American women to the Department of guidance and navigation. In 1953, he was offered a position to Johnson who accepted immediately.

Awards 1967, NASA Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft and Operations team award – for pioneering work in the field of navigation problems supporting the five spacecraft that orbited and mapped the moon in preparation for the Apollo program 1967, Apollo Group Achievement Award – this award included one of only 300 flags flown to the moon on board the Apollo 11 1971, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986: NASA Langley Research Center Special Achievement award 1998, Honorary Doctor of Laws, from SUNY Farmingdale 1999, West Virginia State College Outstanding Alumnus of the Year 2006, Honorary Doctor of Science by the Capitol College, Laurel, Maryland 2010, Honorary

Doctorate of Science from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 2014, De Pizan Honor from National Women's History Museum. 2015, NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award 2015, Presidential Medal of Freedom2016, Silver Snoopy

award from Leland Melvin 2016, Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Arthur B.C. Walker II Award 2016, Presidential Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from West Virginia University,

Morgantown, West Virginia

Legacy and HonorsJohnson co-authored 26 scientific papers. Her social influence as a pioneer in space science and computing is demonstratedby the honors she was recieved and her status as a role model for a life in science. Since 1979 (before she retired from NASA), Johnson has been listed among African Americans in science and tecnology in 2016, Johnson was included in the list of 100 influential women worlwide. NASA stated, “Her calculations proved as critical to the success of the Apollo Moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program, as they did to those first steps on the country´s journey into space.”President Barack Obama presented Johnson with the Presidental Medal of Freedom, one of 17 Americans so honored on November 24,2015. She was cited as a pioneering example of African-American women in STEM.

Trabajo realizado por: Carmen García, Esperanza García, Laura Jimenez, Autum

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