NASA recognizes Katherine Johnson as a pioneering physicist and mathematician. She started at NASA as a “computer,” someone who did calculations. Katherine played an integral role in calculating the routes of many space missions, including to the moon. In fact, John Glenn asked Katherine to check the IBM computer’s calculations to make sure they were accurate.
As a black woman born in the South in the early 1900’s, Katherine faced many barriers to getting a quality math education and advancing in her career. She never let any of those roadblocks stop her. In her town of West Virginia, there were no schools teaching black children beyond 8th grade, so her father moved her family 125 miles away so that she and her siblings could go to high school. Katherine continued her education through college, taking the hardest math classes available.
At Mathnasium of Cottage Grove, we salute Katherine Johnson for smashing through racial and gender social barriers in math. On November 24th, 2015 she was given one of the highest civilian honors available, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Katherine was also a main character in the box-office hit “Hidden Figures.”
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If you would like to learn more about Katherine’s inspiring life story watch Hidden Figures. You could also check out these websites.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/katherine-johnson-the-girl-who-loved-to-count
http://blackamericaweb.com/2014/03/05/little-known-black-history-fact-katherine-g-johnson/
http://www.makers.com/katherine-g-johnson
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/11/25/honoring-nasas-katherine-johnson-stem-pioneer
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