Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (1918-2020)

Katherine Johnson, mathematician, graduated from West Virginia State College and was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She was a teacher before the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later NASA) hired her in 1953 to work in the segregated West Area Computing Unit at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory. Soon transferred to the Flight Research Division, she performed crucial calculations for pathbreaking missions including the U.S.’s first manned spaceflight (1961), first orbital spaceflight (1962), and the first manned moon landing (1969). Before retiring in 1986, she also worked on the Space Shuttle. Pres. Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

Department of Historic Resources, 2020