Katherine Johnson Field Of Study

Mathematician Katherine Johnson's life is 1 marked with many breakthroughs and contributions to the United States' success in space flight. Johnson was built-in in 1918 in West Virginia. She excelled in schoolhouse and enrolled in college at West Virginia State University, studying math and graduating with honors. Johnson began her didactics career in Virginia in 1937, and in 1939 was chosen every bit one of 3 black students to be admitted into the newly integrated graduate studies programs at Westward Virginia State Academy. She left college to beginning a family, and returned to the workforce in 1953 when she secured a position at the National Advisory Commission for Helmsmanship in Langley, Virginia. In 1960, she became the first adult female ni the Flight Research Division of NASA to receive author credit for her contributions to a written report "laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified."

Johnson's knowledge of orbital equations would serve her well for her work supporting the celebrated Friendship 7 mission in which John Glenn made history by condign the offset American to orbit earth. This mission was one of many in her long career working for NASA in moving space exploration forward, which included working on the space shuttle and Apollo lunar lander. She returned In 2015, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Liberty by President Obama. Johnson historic her 100th altogether in 2018.

Source:

Shetterly, Margot Lee. "Katherine Johnson Biography." From Subconscious Figures to Mod Figures, edited by Sarah Loff, National Helmsmanship and Space Assistants, sixteen Aug. 2018, www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography. Accessed 29 January. 2019.

Paradigm credit NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons