Katherine Johnson

Mariah Pettey
Period 1
Dr. Smith
Math project / Katherine Johnson

In 1939 Virginia's state president,  Dr. John W Davis, selected Katherine and two male African American students as the first black students to be offered the opportunity to attend the states flagship school at West Virginia University. Katherine stopped teaching and signed up for the math graduate program. When Katherine finished her first session of the math program she decided to leave and start a family with her husband. Katherine went back to teaching after having her three daughters Constance, Joylette, and  Katherine Gobble. In 1952 Katherine found out about open positions for an all-black west area computing advisory at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in the Langley laboratory, Katherine and her husband decided to move their family so Katharine could take the opportunity. Katherine began working for Langley in the summer of 1953. Dorothy  Vaughan assigned Katherine a project in the flight division Katherine was just temporary until she became permanent. Katherine began the next four years of her career analyzing data from each flight test Katherine also helped with plane crashes caused by turbulence. Katherine’s husband died of cancer in December, 1956  as she was finishing up her work for determining turbulence effects on planes. ​

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Katherine johnson changed history in so many ways for woman not only African  American women but women all over the world . Katherine taught us not only can men do certain jobs but women should be honored and treated the same way as men should . Katherine was honored with many awards for her work. The awards are the 1967 Lunar orbiter spacecraft and operations team member award , The National Technical Associations designation mathematician of the year . She  has earned degrees from SUNY Farmingdale , Maryland’s capital college , Virginia’s old Dominion West Virginia University. In November 2015 Former President Barack Obama presented Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Taraji P Henson also turned Katherine’s novel into a oscar nominated feature film and Taraji played  Katherine in the film Hidden Figures . As you can see Katherine Johnson changed history not only for women but for African American men and Women and we honor her legacy and achievements. She truly has changed history for the world and showing us not only men can be mathematicians and get honored but women can also .

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