It was a small high school and it was pleasant to be there, but everybody knew you. “You got the best education there could be at the time (in Institute),” Johnson recalled recently in the documentary ‘Rise Up West Virginia.’ “You knew everybody. High praise indeed for Johnson, a native of White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., who first came to Institute at the ripe old age of 10 to attend the high school that used to be part of West Virginia State’s campus. In bestowing the award, President Barack Obama called Johnson, “a pioneer in American space history,” whose mathematical calculations “influenced every major space program from Mercury through the Shuttle program.” Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a civilian. In November 2015, West Virginia State graduate Katherine G. The following article about Katherine Johnson first appeared in the 2016 edition of State magazine, West Virginia State University's flagship publication. For more information about the movie, please visit the offiical "HIdden Figures" website here. Johnson's remarkable story is also told in the book and major motion picture "Hidden Figures," released nationwide in January 2016. Katherine Johnson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 6, 2012.West Virginia State graduate Katherine Johnson has received many accolades for her pioneering work at NASA, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020. Johnson in Hampton, Virginia and has three daughters Constance, Joylette and Kathy. In 2006, Johnson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from Capitol College of Laurel, Maryland. She also received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the State University of New York in Farmingdale in 1998 and in 1999, was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year by West Virginia State College. Johnson has co-authored twenty-six scientific papers and has a historically unique listing as a female co-author in a peer-reviewed NASA report. She received the NASA Langely Research Center Special Achievement Award in 1971, 1980, 1984, 19. Johnson has been the recipient of NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award and NASA’s Apollo Group Achievement Award. Johnson also verified the mathematics behind John Glenn’s orbit around the Earth in 1962 and calculated the flight trajectory for Apollo 11’s flight to the moon in 1969. Upon leaving The Flight Mechanics Branch, Johnson went on to join the Spacecraft Controls Branch where she calculated the flight trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space in 1959.
NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. Her knowledge made her invaluable to her superiors and her assertiveness won her a spot in previously all-male meetings. Johnson was assigned to the all-male flight research division. In 1953, she joined Langley Research Center (LaRC) as a research mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). However, family issues kept her from completing the required courses.Īfter college, Johnson began teaching in elementary and high schools in Virginia and West Virginia. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to enroll in the mathematics program. In 1940, she attended West Virginia University to obtain a graduate degree. degree in mathematics, created a special course in analytic geometry specifically for Johnson. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. degree in French and mathematics in 1932 from West Virginia State University (formerly West Virginia State College). She attended West Virginia State High School and graduated from high school at age fourteen. Her father moved Johnson’s family to Institute, West Virginia, which was 125 miles away from the family home so that Johnson and her siblings could attend school. From a young age, Johnson enjoyed mathematics and could easily solve mathematical equations. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor. Mathematician and computer scientist Katherine Johnson was born on Augin White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to Joylette and Joshua Coleman.
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