In 1938, Johnson became the first African-American woman to desegregate the graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. After graduation, Johnson moved to Marion, Virginia, to teach math, French, and music at a small grade school. ![]() She graduated summa cum laude in 1937, with degrees in math and French, at age 18. Claytor added new math courses just for Johnson. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to receive a PhD in math. Multiple professors took Johnson under their wings, including chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King, who had also mentored Johnson throughout high school, and W.W. As a student, Johnson took every math course the college offered. At age 15, she began attending West Virginia State College. Johnson graduated from high school at age 14. The family split their time between Institute during the school year and White Sulphur Springs in the summer. Because Greenbrier County did not offer schooling for African-American students past the eighth grade, the Coleman children attended high school in Institute, Kanawha County, West Virginia. Her parents emphasized the importance of education. Early on, Johnson showed a talent for math. Her father worked as a lumberman, a farmer, a handyman, and at the Greenbrier Hotel. Johnson was born in 1918, to Joshua and Joylette Coleman in White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. ![]() Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, her technical work at NASA spanned decades during which she participated in calculating the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for many flights from Project Mercury including the early NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, through the Space Shuttle program and even early plans for the Mission to Mars. Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is a physicist and mathematician who made contributions to the United States' aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Katherine encouraged her grandchildren and students to pursue careers in science and technology. Two NASA facilities have been named in Katherine's honour and in 2015, the then US President Barack Obama awarded 97-year-old Katherine the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour. The 2016 film, ‘Hidden Figures’, tells the story of how the work of Katherine and other Black women helped NASA win the space race. Katherine co-authored 26 scientific papers and continued to work for NASA until she retired in 1986. ![]() She was part of the team that got the Apollo 13 crew back to Earth safely when their spacecraft malfunctioned. Katherine also helped calculate the trajectory for the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first people on the Moon. The astronaut John Glenn requested that Katherine check the calculations made by electronic computers before his spaceflight on Friendship 7 – “If she says they’re good,’” the astronaut said, “then I’m ready to go.” The path a rocket follows is also known as its trajectory. As a “computer”, she calculated the trajectory that put the first American in space. Katherine used her maths skills to calculate the paths of rockets through space. In 1953 she started a job carrying out mathematical calculations at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), later known as NASA. She then took a break from studying and teaching to have children. In 1939, Katherine became the first Black woman to study for a postgraduate qualification at West Virginia University. She graduated with the highest honours in 1937 and took a job teaching at a Black public school in Virginia. Katherine was curious about numbers from an early age and took every course in maths she could at West Virginia State College. ![]() Her mother was a teacher and her father a farmer and handyman. Katherine Johnson grew up in West Virginia, USA. Research Areas: Rocket Flightpaths, Trajectories, Orbital Mechanics
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