Katherine Johnson

African-American mathematician

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Lived 1918–2020, aged 102United States

United States AcademicsAcademic

Wikipedia
68 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1918–2020
Aged 102
Awards
9
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-08-28

She did the math that put Americans in space — by hand. Before computers were trusted, NASA trusted Katherine Johnson's calculations for trajectories, launch windows, and the paths that brought astronauts home.

Biography

About

Creola Katherine Johnson was born August 26, 1918, and became one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist during a 33-year career that began at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. She mastered complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the shift to electronic computing for tasks humans once performed. Her work spanned Project Mercury — including flights for Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit — through Apollo's lunar rendezvous paths, the Space Shuttle program, and plans for a Mars mission. In 2015 Pres…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson

saidundated

In the cafeteria, we just ignored the sign [for segregated seating]. But at some point, we started eating at our desks.

Katherine Johnson

saidundated

But then we’d be back with our colleagues on the job. People are people. My father’s advice helped. He said, “You’re no better than anybody else, but nobody is better than you.

Katherine Johnson

saidundated

I was always interested in math. I counted everything as a child — the number of steps up the stairs, the dishes, the steps to church. Those thoughts just came naturally.

Katherine Johnson

saidundated

It’s just there. You can’t do anything without it. It’s in everything. I like to work problems. If you do your best, nobody can ask you to do it over again.

Katherine Johnson

saidundated