Katherine Johnson

This is the story of a space scientist, a mathematician, a physicist and a pioneer. 

Katherine Johnson loved math. Early in her career, she was called a “computer.” She helped NASA put an astronaut into orbit around Earth. And then she helped put a man on the Moon. Basically, she was a genius!

Let's learn more about Katherine!

Katherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to Joylette and Joshua Coleman. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor.

As a young girl, Katherine loved to count. She counted everything.

She also loved to learn. She loved learning math the most. Katherine went through school quickly. She started high school when she was just 10 years old!

When she was 15, Katherine began college. She took classes to become a mathematician. That is someone who is an expert in math. She learned how to solve big problems by using math, especially geometry. 

Geometry is a kind of math that uses lines, shapes and angles. Katherine studied hard. She graduated from college when she was 18.

She received her degree in mathematics and French from West Virginia State College. What do you want to study when you grow up? 

After college, Katherine became a teacher. She taught school until she got married and had children. When her husband became very sick, she started teaching again to support her family.

When Katherine was 34, she heard that NASA was hiring African American women to solve math problems. These workers were called “computers.” Katherine applied for one of the jobs, but all the jobs were already taken. 

Still, she did not give up. She applied again the next year, and this time NASA hired her. She worked with a large group of women who were all computers like she was.

But Katherine was different from the other human computers. She asked a lot of questions. She wanted to learn more about her work and about NASA. So she started going to meetings. Before Katherine, only men attended these meetings. She changed that! She learned so much that she left her job as a computer. She became a team member who worked on different space projects for NASA.

In 1962, the United States decided to send people to the Moon. That was big news. Getting to and from the Moon would take a lot of work. As the U.S. space agency, NASA would have to solve many, many problems. So NASA created large teams to solve them.

In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. However, before he left the ground, he wanted to make sure the electronic computer had planned the flight correctly. 

Glenn asked to have Katherine double check the computer’s calculations. Katherine was also part of the team that calculated where and when the rocket would be launched that would send the first three men to the Moon.