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Katherine Johnson

File:Katherine_Johnson_1983.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Katherine Johnson

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Also known as Katherine Coleman, Katherine Goble, Creola Katherine Johnson, Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

African-American mathematician

OverviewAI-generated

Katherine Johnson, born Creola Katherine Coleman in White Sulphur Springs, was an American computer scientist, physicist, mathematician, and teacher. An African American woman, she was educated at West Virginia University and West Virginia State University. She worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA, specializing in orbital mechanics, aerospace engineering, and computational mathematics. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha and was influenced by Angie Turner King and Dorothy Vaughan.

Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the BBC 100 Women recognition, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Hubbard Medal. She was a centenarian who died in Newport News. In addition to her scientific work, she authored 63 works, including *Buried Dreams* and *World Citizen : Grade 6*. She spoke English and French and had three children.

Synthesized by Vinony from 31 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, TMDb, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
63

Top works

  • The case of Elizabeth Feild, wife of Theophilus Feild, gent. and Katherine Johnson, widow
  • Buried Dreams
  • World Citizen : Grade 6
  • My Lord's Judgment
  • World Citizen : Grades Pre K-K

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Katherine Johnson (née Coleman; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020), also known as Katherine Goble, was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for…

Known for

  • Outlier: the story of Katherine Johnson — Herself2019
  • 1969 — Herself2019

via TMDB

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Katherine
Family name
Johnson
Gender
female
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
White Sulphur Springs
Place of death
Newport News
Occupation
teacher
Educated at
West Virginia State University
Employer
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
Languages spoken
French
Field of work
physics
Official website
katherinejohnson.net
Image
Katherine Johnson 1983.jpg
Number of children
3
Show 13 more facts
date of birth
1918-08-26
Commons category
Katherine Johnson
ethnic group
African Americans
member of
Alpha Kappa Alpha
name in native language
Katherine Johnson
date of death
2020-02-24
described at URL
www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/science/katherine-johnson-dead.html
subject has role
centenarian
birth name
Creola Katherine Coleman
name
Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson
start of work period
1953-00-00
end of work period
1986-00-00
maintained by WikiProject
WikiProject Mathematics
Sources (12)

via Wikidata · CC0

~20 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Creola Katherine Johnson (née Coleman, previously Goble; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician and human computer whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform tasks previously requiring humans. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".

Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard (the first American in space) and John Glenn (the first American in orbit), and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a human mission to Mars.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Katherine Johnson” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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