The teacher was a great encourager to the students and a strong mentor to many of them. Miss Turner taught geometry, and Johnson couldn’t wait to take her class. In school, one teacher stood out to Johnson. Johnson so excelled that she began her studies in the second grade, then moved into advanced classes. The opportunity to attend school finally did come. She can vividly remember watching her older siblings go to school and wishing so much that she could go with them. At a young age, she was ready and anxious to go to school. Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Johnson’s love for mathematics was inherent, an inclination she had from birth. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.” And so it began for this young girl from West Virginia. More important, she was living out her life's goal, though, when it became her goal, she wasn't sure what it involved.Īs a child, Katherine Johnson loved to count. She was a "computer" at Langley Research Center "when the computer wore a skirt," said Johnson. I'm as good as anybody, but no better."īut probably a lot smarter. She always said she was too busy with her work to be concerned about being treated unequally.Katherine Johnson said: "My dad taught us 'you are as good as anybody in this town, but you're no better.' I don't have a feeling of inferiority. There, she had the job title “computer” and was tasked with calculating trajectories for early US space missions.ĭuring the space race between the US and the former Soviet Union, Ms Johnson and her African-American colleagues worked in separate facilities to white workers, and used different toilets and dining areas. Nasa notes that her academic achievements were particularly impressive “in an era when school for African-Americans normally stopped at eighth grade for those that could indulge in that luxury”.Īfter working as a teacher and being a stay-at-home mum, Ms Johnson began working for Nasa’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Naca), in 1953. She excelled academically, graduating from high school at just 14 and from university at 18. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed…anything that could be counted, I did,” she once said.
Ms Johnson was born in a small town in West Virginia in 1918 and was fascinated by numbers from a young age. She also helped to calculate the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. Such was her skill and reputation that Glenn had asked for her specifically and had refused to fly unless she verified the calculations. Ms Johnson had previously calculated the trajectory for the space flight of Alan Shepard – the first American in space. Katherine Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 | Photo: Reuters Ms Johnson verified the calculations made by new electronic computers before his flight. The film tells the story of African-American women whose maths skills helped put US astronaut John Glenn into orbit around the Earth in 1962. She was portrayed in the 2016 Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Ms Johnson calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for Nasa’s early space missions. Nasa announced her death on Twitter, saying it was celebrating her life and honouring “her legacy of excellence that broke down racial and social barriers”.
Pioneering African-American Nasa mathematician Katherine Johnson has died at the age of 101.
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