Katherine Johnson, born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918 had a intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers which helped her skip several grades in schools. By the age of 13, she was attending high school on the campus of HBCU West Virginia Sate College. At 18, she then enrolled in the college itself and graduated with the highest honors in 1937. Katherine, then took a job teaching at a public school in Virginia.
In 1939, West Virginia decided to quietly integrate its graduate schools and the Dr. John W. Davis, West Virginia State's president, handpicked her and two men to be the first black students. Johnson then left her teaching job and enrolled in the graduate math program. Shortly after enrolling, Johnson decided to leave school to starta a family with her first husband, James Goble.
In 1952, a relative told her about open positions at the all-black West
Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics' (NACA's) Langly laboratory. Katherine and her family
decided to move to Newport News, Virginia, to pursue the opporunity at
Langley. This is where most of Katherines's notable moments occurred as
she made significant impact with NASA.
When Katherine was asked to name her greatest contribution to space
exploration, she would talk about the calculations that helped synch
Project Appol's Lunar Module with the lunar-orbiting Command and Service
Module. She worked on and authored or coauthored 26 research reports and
retired in 1986, after 33 years at Langley.