In 1940, she agreed to serve as one of three carefully selected students to desegregate West Virginia University’s graduate program. Long before psychologist Angela Duckworth called attention to the power of passion and perseverance in the form of grit, Katherine Johnson modeled this stalwart characteristic. She used these analytical skills to verify the computer calculations for John Glenn’s orbit around the earth and to help determine the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon, among others. Mathematics concepts build on one another and the mathematics she learned in this class helped her in her work at NASA many years later. Once Johnson completed the standard mathematics curriculum at West Virginia State College, Claytor created advanced classes just for her, including a course on analytic geometry.
#KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA ID PROFESSIONAL#
In the 1930s, a little over 100 American women counted themselves as professional mathematicians. Claytor encouraged Katherine to become a research mathematician. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. While there, she had the good fortune to learn from W. Johnson graduated from West Virginia State College at the age of 18. Thirteen years older than Johnson, she modeled a life of possibility. King taught Johnson geometry and encouraged her mathematical pursuits. King taught at the laboratory high school while she worked to become one of the first African-American women to earn masters degrees in math and chemistry.
While at West Virginia State, Johnson took classes with Angie Turner King. Johnson entered West Virginia State College High School as a preteen and enrolled at the age of 14. Mentors make a differenceĮarly in her life, Johnson’s parents fostered her intellectual prowess.īecause there was no high school for African-American children in their hometown of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, the family relocated to Institute, West Virginia, during the school year. I can point to some contemporary ideas we can all benefit from when examining Johnson’s life. Her legacy provides lessons for supporting women and other underrepresented groups in mathematics and science.Īs a historian of mathematics, I have studied women in that field and use the book “Hidden Figures” in my classroom. Johnson became a household name thanks to the celebrated book “ Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race,” which later became a movie.
Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who made critical contributions to the space program at NASA, died Feb.
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