When students head to campus at WVU this August, one of them will be the first recipient of the Katherine Johnson Math Scholarship. Melvin in 2016, a year after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Barack Obama.ĭeb Miller, a former employee of the WVU Foundation, told Robb Report she was moved to endow the scholarship after watching Hidden Figures. Johnson received NASA’s Silver Snoopy from astronaut Leland D.
And today, universities closer to Johnson’s hometown of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, continue to honor her legacy, most recently with the creation of the Katherine Johnson Math Scholarship at West Virginia University. Hidden Figures was swiftly followed by numerous accolades for Johnson, including honorary doctorates from universities as far away as South Africa. Or that she would go on to complete graduate work at the university before becoming a NASA employee. Or that she would graduate summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and French. Those women, of course, all started out as girls much like Johnson, who didn’t know she would become one of the first Black students to attend West Virginia State College (now known as WVU). This month, Northrop Grumman named its NG-15 Cygnus spacecraft after her, and WVU will hold a panel discussion to “celebrate Black History Month and honor Katherine Johnson and the legacy of strong women she inspired.” Johnson died in February 2020, but her legacy continues to inspire people of all races and genders today.
“She has such a towering talent, but she has gone out of her way to recognize talent in other people,” Shetterly said at the time. Shetterly, the author of Hidden Figures, gave the keynote address. She received that honor during a ceremony that also saw a $30 million, 40,000-square-foot Computational Research Facility being named in her honor. Melvin presented her with the Silver Snoopy Award, which is given for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success.īy then, Johnson was 97 years old. In 2015, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is given to people who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” In 2016, NASA astronaut Leland D. She also was involved with planning for a mission to Mars. Johnson was figuring out complex mathematics for space flights years before NASA came to rely on computers.Īfter that, Johnson did calculations that helped with the start of the Space Shuttle program. As NASA puts it today, “None of the other women had ever asked questions before, but by asking questions, Johnson began to stand out.” Engineers would assign her mathematical problems to solve, which she did while challenging the status quo and asking them why and how they were assigning the problems in the first place. Johnson started working at NASA in 1953, back when it was still called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The film told the story that author Margot Lee Shetterly detailed in her book by the same name, about Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race. Henson portrayed her in the 2016 film Hidden Figures (as part of the Screen Actors Guild Award-winning cast). Much of the world learned that story-and the fact that Johnson even existed-more than a half-century later, when Taraji P. “If she says the computer is right,” he said. West Virginia native and West Virginia State University alumna Katherine Johnson played a pivotal role in NASA’s missions to put men in space and on the moon.Astronaut John Glenn asked Johnson to double-check the math against a computer that had calculated Friendship 7’s path in space.
KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA ADDRESS TODAY TV
C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2019 LCV Cities Tour” in Charleston, West Virginia, from October 19-23, 2019, to feature the history and literary life of the community. Working with the Altice cable local affiliate, they visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments air on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments air on Book TV on C-SPAN2. West Virginia State University President Anthony Jenkins talked about Johnson’s contributions. T15:30:23-05:00 West Virginia native and West Virginia State University alumna Katherine Johnson played a pivotal role in NASA’s missions to put men in space and on the moon.
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