Full Name
Date of Birth
August 26, 1918
Date of Death
February 24, 2020
Place of Birth
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, United States
Place of Death
Newport News, Virginia, United States
Education
- West Virginia State College (B.S., Mathematics and French, 1937)
Spouse’s Name
- James Francis Goble (m. 1939, d. 1956)
- James A. Johnson (m. 1959)
Known Affiliates Names
Affiliated Organizations’ Names
Major Events
- Space Race (calculated and analyzed flight paths of many spacecraft)
- Apollo 11 (calculated the flight path)
Brief Biography
Katherine Johnson, born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was an American mathematician who played a crucial role in calculating and analyzing the flight paths of many spacecraft during her more than three decades with the U.S. space program. She began her career with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1952 and later worked for NASA. Johnson’s work contributed to the success of the Apollo 11 mission, which landed astronauts on the moon and returned them safely to Earth. She received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. In 2016, her story was depicted in the movie “Hidden Figures,” and NASA named the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in her honor[1][2][3][4][5].
Citations: [1] https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/katherine-johnson [2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katherine-Johnson-mathematician [3] https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/katherine-johnson-biography/ [4] https://wams.nyhistory.org/growth-and-turmoil/cold-war-beginnings/katherine-johnson/ [5] https://www.biography.com/scientists/katherine-g-johnson