Katherine Johnson, Queen of Computation

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#USA, March 9, 2023 – Before computers, sleek gray devices with keypads and touchscreens, there were the real computers, the women whose math equations sent the first man to space.  Foremost among them was Katherine Johnson, an African American woman born in 1918.

Johnson truly embodies the 2023 Women’s Day Theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality” as she broke the glass ceiling times over, her calculations which she did without the help of modern-day computers (because they did not have the capability!) were integral in the first ever human space flight and many of the subsequent ones.

She was so talented that she helped engineer the use of computers to replicate the tasks she got done with nothing but her mind, and it was her endorsement that instilled confidence in the devices’ ability to compute.

Born Creola Katherine Coleman, the mathematician entered high school at 10 years old and graduated at 14.  She moved on to West Virginia State College (now University) and graduated at 18 after taking every math course the university offered.  She worked short stints in teaching before being hired at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at only 35.

Soon her knowledge and talent distinguished her, and she was held in high esteem at NACA despite the racial and gender barriers that she faced.  She helped to calculate trajectories that rockets would take on space flights for Alan Shepard, the first American in space and others.  She calculated when they would launch, emergency paths for them to take, and other life and death math equations.

She was an advocate of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and is cited as encouraging her many daughters and granddaughters into the field.  She also lived to see herself celebrated by her peers and country.  Johnson received the presidential medal of freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, and NASA has named at least two buildings after her which she saw in person, and she also saw the dramatization of her life on screen in the motion picture, Hidden Figures, where she was played by Taraji P Henson.

Johnson died in 2020 at 101.