Katherine Johnson

Known for her role as one of the main protagonists in 2016 biographical film, Hidden Figures, Katherine Johnson paved the way for women to pursue careers in the STEM field by being one of the first female African American NASA mathematicians in the 1960s. Born in 1918, West Virginia, Johnson always had a natural gift with numbers, which was apparent in her classes. At the age of 14, her brilliance in mathematics opened many opportunities for her, such as being invited to continue her high school academics at the West Virginia State College campus! She then enrolled in the college after graduating high school and excelled in their mathematics curriculum. After graduating at 18 with the highest achieving honors, she began her teaching career at a high school in Virginia and eventually started a family years later. In 1953, Johnson and a few other African American women were chosen to work at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, led by Dorothy Vaughan, where she spent the next 30 years computing at NASA. 

Katherine Johnson used her computing skills to examine flight tests, use geometry for space exploration, and to analyze the trajectories for space travel. However, most of her mathematical calculations were hand-computed, meaning she just used a pencil, a side ruler, and her extraordinary brain to figure out precise trajectories of orbital paths. In fact, Johnson did the calculations for the trajectory of the first manned launch by hand, as well as many other missions! For example, her exceptional calculations guided the first moon landing in 1969, the Apollo 11, which allowed for Neil Armstrong to do his historic moonwalk and return back to earth. After that, with the help of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, the trio calculated countless algorithms that helped NASA’s 1962 Friendship 7 Mission and continued their work as their importance in the workplace grew more valuable to astronauts. 

Despite her incredible computing skills, however, Johnson still faced instituional racism and sexism constantly at her job. Jim Crow laws began in the 1960’s, so separate bathrooms remained at the NASA facility, meaning that women of color had to go farther just to use the restroom. Unknowingly, Johnson used the White women’s restroom and continued using it after being called out, as she was determined and set in her ways. Not to mention white men would hold meetings with no women, and when Johnson questioned them, they simply replied with, “Well, the girls don’t usually go.” She then asked if there was a law against it, in which they replied that there was no such law, so she attended the meetings from then on. Her persistence and tenacity were some of the many reasons she was such a prominent and important figure to astronauts in NASA. 

In 2015, Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama for her work and was later given the NASA Group Achievement Award in 2016. The next year, NASA named a building at the Langley Research Center in honor of her achievements and fortitude. She battled both racism and sexism daily as an African American woman working at NASA, so her perseverance was truly something to admire. Johnson died at the age of 101 on February 24th, 2020, but her legacy will live on for breaking barriers for women in the STEM field. As she once said, "We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics."

Author: Zaynab Mirza