Day -514- Daily Haibun Journey — Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson passed away one year ago on this date, February 24, 2020 at the age of 101. She was an integral part of the Nasa team doing the numbers necessary to orbit and retrieve a man orbiting the earth and in sending a man to the moon. She was born on August 24, 1918 in West Virginia. She always loved numbers and counted everything. She started high school by age ten.
She earned a B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937. She taught math in a public high school until she had children. When they were older, she applied to the NACA program where they employed black women as computers using manual adding machines. She worked for NASA for thirty years, retiring in 1986.To learn more about the accomplishments and struggles of this remarkable mathematician you should watch the movie “Hidden Figures.”
