Katherine Johnson

Johnson was born in West Virginia in 1918. Even as a little girl, she loved math. 

“She counted everything: houses, stairs, dishes, the stars in the sky,” says Margot Lee Shetterly. She wrote a book called Hidden Figures. It’s about real Black female mathematicians at NASA. 

Johnson was very smart! She skipped a few grades in school before graduating from college. In 1953, Johnson got a job as a “human computer.” 

Computers at the time were very simple. So she and other female mathematicians solved math problems using mostly their powerful brains. Their work was used to design and fly planes and rockets.

But Johnson faced many challenges. Back then, segregation was legal. Johnson was kept separate from White women doing the same job. Plus, women were paid less than men.

Still, Johnson rose to the top. In 1961, she worked on America’s first human spaceflight. A year later, she helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit, or go around, Earth.

But she was most proud of her work on the Apollo 11 mission. In 1969, she helped astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins travel to the moon and back. 

In 2016, a movie based on Hidden Figures came out. It was a hit! Suddenly, more people knew about Johnson and her work. 

When Johnson died in 2020, she was 101. But her memory is still alive at NASA. To honor Johnson, the agency named two buildings after her.

1. How did Johnson’s love of math change her life?
2. Why were Johnson and other NASA mathematicians known as “human computers”?
   
3. What does the author mean when she writes that Johnson “rose to the top”?