Since March is National Woman’s Month, I decided that for each week of this month I will make a blog post highlighting a woman’s accomplishments from various work fields varying from Fashion to Music and everything and anything in between and further.
For my second installation of this series, when thinking of a person I decided to pick a woman from the STEM field. I decided to focus this week on someone from that area because that is an area where there is not a lot of representation, but when it is represented it makes a huge impact on the world. According to the National Girls Collabortive Project, “Women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 28% of the science and engineering workforce.” Moreover, she is an African American woman. This factors in as well, because the African American community is also underrepresented in the STEM career field as well. NGCP, also states “Hispanics, blacks, and American Indians/Alaska Natives make up a smaller share of the science and engineering workforce, 11%.” She not only helped advance work in the space field, she helped inspire many other woman.
Bright as a Star
From a young age Katherine showed great potential. According to NASA, at a young age Johnson excelled with numbers and school, so much so she went through her education rapidly. “By 13, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At 18, she enrolled in the college itself.” She then became a teacher. But, she left that position because she was handpicked to be one of three first black students (first black woman) to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools.
NASA Historical Work
According to NASA , “She worked in the all-black West Area Computing Section for NACA (renamed NASA) Langley Labratory starting 1953.” Throughout her career there she helped in the math area of several missions, that were successful because of her work. From Trajectory Missions to Orbital Missions, Johnson’s work was essential to make the missions possible. So much so, that Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut from her most know work, John Glenn say “If she says they’re good,then I’m ready to go.”; when being asked if the calculations for the mission were correct. The mission shaped the space race between the USA and the then Soviet Union, now Russia, giving the USA an advantage.
Legacy that Lives On
Sadly, Katherine Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020, she died at the age of 101. Many mourned her because she had contributed so much to the space department. Katherine knew that her and her peers work was appreciated. In 2017, Fox 20th Century released a movie called Hidden Figurers. According to IMDB, the movie is “The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.” This movie won many awards like the Screen Actors Guild, African-American Film Critics Association, Casting Society of America, just to name a few; not mentioning their nominations to prestigious awards like Oscars and Golden Globes. This really cemented their story. Johnson was also granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2015.
The impact that Johnson had was crucial for the progress of NASA and being from all varios the missions she worked on. She has helped bring diversity and change to a field that is predominantly thought of as white males. She probably has inspired other African American woman, other woman of color to go into the field because representation is key. The more kids see people who look like them in a field the more likely they might want to proceed it because they think it’s more attainable. Not saying, kids won’t want the job if there isn’t representation. I’m just saying that, from experience, when you see someone who looks like you; whether gender, sexuality, background, etc, the dream job becomes a little brighter because it seems a bit more achievable because you can somehow relate to the person.
Katherine lived a great live, she was an intellectual and a pioneer.
J’s Journal 
One thought on “Woman of the Week: Katherine Johnson”