Katherine Johnson

1918 born in White Sulphur Springs, WV
Youth & Studies
1. 1937 B.S. in mathematics and French from West Virginia State College
  1. 1937 took a job teaching at a public school in Virginia
    1. 1939 Was one of the three people (the only woman) chosen to integrate west Virginias graduate schools
      1. Left after the first session to start a family and returned to teaching when her three girls got older
Teacher & Researcher
1. 1953 Hired by NACA (later known as NASA)
  1. 1960 coauthored a report describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified
    1. This was the first time a woman in the flight research division had received credit as an author of a research report
    2. 1961 she did trajectory analysis for Alan’s Shepard’s mission Freedom 7
      1. This was americas first human spaceflight
        She was called by John Glenn (the astronaut) to double check the calculations done by the computer before takeoff
      2. She performed calculations that helped synch project apollos lunar module with the lunar orbiting command and service module
        Worked on the space shuttle and the art resources technology satellite
        ERTS also names Landsat
        Authored or coauthored 26 research reports
Later Years
1. 1986 retired after 33 years at Langley
  1. 2020 died at 101 years old

Resource summary

	Created by Joseph Gianotti over 3 years ago