Katherine Goble Johnson was born on August 26, 1918 in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Her mother was a teacher and her dad was a farmer and a janitor. She was the youngest of the four children.

As a child Katherine was gifted with a great curiosity and brilliance for numbers. From that it made her go ahead several grades in school. By the time she was thirteen, she was attending

high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College.

At the age of 18 she enrolled in college itself at West Virginia State University. She was the first African American to apply enroll in the mathematics program. She soon made quick work of the school's math curriculum. She also found a mentor in math, with professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor.

Katherine graduated with the highest honors in her class. After college she started teaching in Elementary and High Schools in Virginia and West Virginia.

Soon after she started teaching she enrolled in a math graduate program. At the end of the first session, she left school to go start a family with her husband. She wouldn't return until 1952 when her daughters were older.

In 1953 she joined a Langley Research center as a research and mathematician for the National Advisory committee for Aeronautics. Johnson was assigned to an all male flight division. Her intelligence made her valuable to her superiors and her assertiveness won her a spot on a previously all-male meeting.

In 1958, Katherine soon left the Langley research facility and started calculating flight trajectories that would help the US get into space first against the Russians.