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(Under "Awards" tab)
September 18, 2024
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Dr. Christine Darden of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, along with all the other women who served at the agency and its precursor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or the NACA, as computers, mathematicians, and engineers, informally known as the "Hidden Figures of NASA" were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Dr.ztsyed (talk) 21:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: It's the Congressional Gold Medal, and it was awarded in 2019 and is already listed in the article. I don't know why they waited 5 years to hold a ceremony for it. Schazjmd(talk)22:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Revised Post: Katherine Johnson
Birthdate: August 26, 1918
Early Life & Career:
Katherine Johnson, born in 1918, was an African American mathematician who is best known for her work done for NASA. She was raised in West Virginia as one of the four children [1]. During her childhood, she faced hardship to complete a proper education as a Black student. Her parents pushed for an education for her and her siblings but were limited due to segregated schools. Katherine excelled in school, starting high school at just 10 years old and finishing at 13 [1][2]. She would move on to go to West Virginia State College where she met her mentor and mathematics professor Dr. William Claytor. She graduated from college summa cum laude at just 18 years old with a degree in French and math [1][2].
In 1939, Katherine married James “Jimmie” Goble, and in the same year was also invited to integrate West Virginia University as one of three black students [1][2]. She studied math there, but soon decided not to finish her degree and instead start a family. She returned to West Virginia and had three daughters with Jimmie from 1940–1944. In 1951, Johnson had to move to Newport News, VA because her home caught on fire. This move presented a job opportunity for female mathematicians at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
At NACA, Katherine was considered a “human computer” among other women because they were tasked to complete all the engineering calculations. During this time of segregation, Johnson was separated from her White colleagues in a Black-women-only division. At the office, she was known to rebel against this segregation and would often involve herself with her White colleagues. In 1956, Jimmie died of a brain tumor. Three years later, she would go on to meet James “Jim” Johnson and marry him in 1959 [1]. In 1958, NACA was incorporated into the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which banned segregation [3]. As a member of the NASA Space Task Group, she co-authored a paper on calculations for space orbit. She was the first woman in her division to have her name on a published paper. She would go on to co-author 26 research reports throughout her career [3].
From 1961–1963, she worked on NASA’s Mercury program to calculate paths for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7, John Glenn’s Friendship 7 (the first U.S. astronaut to orbit earth), and the 1969 Apollo 11 which sent three men to the moon for the first time [3]. These were the most notable achievements of her career until her retirement in 1989.
Pain Point and Innovation:
Before Katherine, NASA was not able to calculate the trajectory for several space missions which was preventing the U.S. from advancing spacecraft milestones that other countries were reaching. She was able to help solve this problem with her advanced mathematic knowledge.
Katherine made groundbreaking mathematic solutions for America’s most notable and earliest milestones in space. She solved the solutions for the spacecraft orbit paths to go around the Earth and land on the Moon [4]. NASA used Katherine’s mathematics for several crucial space missions and could not have accomplished them without her.
Impact and Legacy:
Katherine’s impact stretches from co-authoring more than 20 scientific papers to being instrumental in NASA’s early missions of Project Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite. Her name became more widely known after the 2016 film “Hidden Figures” where her life story is portrayed. She has since be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, as well as being honored in the NASA Independent Verification and Validation Facility in 2019. West Virginia has marked August 26 as “Katherine Johnson Day” to celebrate her impact and legacy [5].
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Not done: She died on February 24 2024, which is supported by reliable sources. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 01:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
