Katherine Johnson was born in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918 and excelled in mathematics from a young age. After skipping several grades throughout primary school, Johnson attended West Virginia University, and was handpicked as one of three Black students — and the only Black woman — to attend WVU’s graduate program.
In 1952 she began working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) which slowly transitioned into the program we know today as NASA. There, she worked on an investigation of a plane crash and analyzed date from flight tests.
When the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in 1957, Johnson transitioned into mathematics for space travel and became a part of the Space Task Force, which was the first official move into space exploration. Johnson co-authored a report laying out equations needed for orbital space flight and became the first woman credited as a research author for the team.
Johnson’s orbital calculations became seminal, and she conducted, by hand, one of the final tests before successfully sending John Glenn into space. Following that success, Johnson’s calculations were used to send a man to the moon, marking a historic moment in US space flight.
In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom to honor her contributions, and she was the subject of the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures,” which dramatized her work at the space agency.
